Posts
Friday March 10.
Today, Jacob Hornberger writes a response to my
recent post on culture and open borders.
It earned the topmost spot on his daily email.
Why Jacob is writing regarding my post that was in response
to something written by Sheldon Richman, I have no idea. Can’t Richman speak for himself?
I haven’t read Jacob’s post, and I am not going to read it. Instead, I offer this
post. In it, I offer the reasons why
I have stopped wasting my time debating this issue with Jacob or even reading
anything he writes on the subject. In
it, I also suggest that he is stuck in a contradiction of his own making (as is
just about every open-borders libertarian, albeit each for different reasons,
perhaps).
Jacob is very good on many issues – most notably war. On this topic, he is terrible. Until Jacob makes an honest attempt to
engage, instead of continuously changing the argument when he is trapped, I
will ignore him.
I will make certain he sees this post.
I have said it before and will state again for the record. This man is not honest. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He is what we call a shill. What makes him more insidious is the facade of being a peace lover. There are two possible outcomes from the coming hell that will be the 21st century: bloodshed or more bloodshed. Hornberger advocates for the later.
ReplyDeleteSo BM didn't read it. I did. It contains what you would call "talking points," BM is used to conducting debates in good faith and doesn't want to get into the gutter so to speak (assume bad faith and act accordingly). I have no such compunctions.
Exhibit A: "Illegal immigration"
Mentions by Hornberger: 4 (including the gross lie that illegal immigration is only 11 million people in the united states)
Mentions by BM: 0
Exhibit B: "Immigration"
Mentions by Hornberger: 5
Mentions by BM: 0 (with the exception of 2 mentions by ME)
Exhibit C: "Culture"
Mentions by Hornberger: 1 (first sentence: "... what Bionic says is a strawman, one that, he says, Richman has constructed with respect to the concept of culture.")
Mentions by BM: 6
Talking points.....
Hornberger, the wheels of history will not stop no matter how much you and Richman kvetch. We know what this is about.
UC, thank you for the objective information that demonstrates my subjective observation.
DeleteAnd this is just in one of his posts; for some reason I had the patience to accept this tactic four or five times before I shut it down.
I'm still waiting for Hornberger to call for open borders for Israel, as I asked him to do before.
ReplyDeleteWhy does Hornberger call for open border for the US and Europe to the extent of writing that the citizens of these countries MUST fund the migration but not call for Israel to do the same? Well, the answer is that Hornberger is Jewish and he knows that kind of migration would be harmful to his people.
I am sick of this stuff. Hornberger realizes that it is harmful to our people too, so why is he advocating a harmful policy that he rejects for his own people in Israel.
He's already done so directly to you:
Delete"I call for open borders everywhere. Freedom principles work universally and should be applied everywhere. Fundamental rights adhere to all people, not just Americans, as Jefferson pointed out in the documents that Americans celebrate ever 4th of July."
http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2016/05/minarchism-border-control-and-invasion.html?showComment=1464664157307#c7367327881740940763
Does that look like a call for open borders for Israel to you, Jack? I asked for a specific call for open borders for Israel (just like he specifically called for Europe and the US) and the above quote was his dodge.
DeleteI am no fan of Jacob Hornberger's open-borders enthusiasm, but I understand he's a practicing Christian.
ReplyDeleteDoes Homberger advocates for Mexico to have open borders?
ReplyDeleteOk. I read Homberger. I need eye flush. Tresspasing because the guv'mint made them do it. Robert Wenzel, calling Wenzel to aisle FFF. Bring your airplane.
ReplyDeleteI too, have been considering the ramifications of property control. Seems to me that without property control, there is no line between stealing, trading and sharing. Exchanges are not possible without boundaries between what is one person’s property and that of others. The social relationship then degenerates into tribalism, in which profits are redistributed by authority, destroying the incentive to profit from innovative production.
ReplyDeleteHave concluded that in practice, the various political systems are simply labels for various degrees of authority enforced profit redistribution.
Had an online discussion with Jacob, myself. Could not convince him that what he is calling “open borders” are actually borders controlled by politically imposed inclusion/exclusion. He is, however, a pleasant conversationalist. I had been making the same mistake as he and our discussion revealed my error.
P.S. This is an interesting blog; the elegant writing style, variety and quality of the topics and intelligent responses are always a pleasure to read.
Is it possible that the real reason you all decline to address my points in a substantive way and instead hit me with personal attacks is because you find my points to be irrefutable?
ReplyDeleteHere are the central points that none of you can refute or deny:
1. Government immigration controls, together with their enforcement mechanisms, violate the libertarian non-aggression principle and, therefore, are inconsistent with libertarianism.
2. Given that millions of Americans are willing to sell or rent homes to foreigners, and hire them, and sell goods and services to them in a government society, there is no reason to believe that they would behave any differently if government were suddenly to disappear. Therefore, how can any libertarian anarchist defend immigration controls, given that they are nothing more than government control over the free and consensual movements of people from private property to private property in a government society?
Do I call for open borders for Israel? Of course I do! Why wouldn’t I? Libertarian principles are universal. No, no one should be forced to fund anything but, by the same token, no libertarian should ever permit the state, statists, or statist programs (e.g., the welfare state) to maneuver and manipulate him into adopting and endorsing statist positions (e.g., immigration controls and drug laws). And, oh, by the way, I’m a Catholic. :)
Jacob
DeleteI always find it helpful to be specific as to whom I am accusing and the specific statements that are at issue. "You all" isn't helpful.
Regarding your questions, I have a half-dozen posts worth of points you have ignored. You will understand that I have no plan to address yours.
Here are the central points that open-borders "libertarians" can refute or deny:
Delete1. Government immigration encouragement, via refugee-spawning wars and refugee resettlement subsidies, together with its "non-discrimination" enforcement mechanisms, violates the libertarian non-aggression principle and, therefore, is inconsistent with libertarianism.
2. Given that millions of Americans are not willing to sell or rent homes to foreigners, or hire them, or sell goods or services to them in a government society, there is no reason to believe that they would behave any differently if government were suddenly to disappear. Therefore, how can any libertarian anarchist defend wars and resettlement subsidies, let alone forced association, given that they are nothing more than government control over the free and consensual movements of people from private property to private property in a government society?
Do I call for open borders for Israel? I do not! Why would I? Libertarian principles are universal, and Jews ought to be free to discriminate. I do wish the Jews settling in the Levant and founding the modern state of Israel had not expelled its indigenous peoples, as those actions clearly violated the NAP. Nevertheless, American should be forced neither to fund the ongoing disenfranchisement of the indigenous peoples nor support their repatriation. And, oh, by the way, I’m a Catholic, too.
Jacob,
DeleteWhat is being done to Europe is ethnic cleansing. You support this. The majority of the invaders do not get jobs and are not wanted by the people. They are forced on the people because European countries are occupied nations under brutal oppression where they censor speech by literally throwing in jail people who dissent, and will give favor to the rapefugees rather than their victims. You know whats going on. You know why a lot of us are very angry. You are complicit in a crime.
Hey Jacob,then I look forward to seeing your article demanding that Israel take in unlimited migrants based on the chaos that Israel has inflicted on the people of the Middle East,just as you wrote that Europe and the US must do. You must also write that any Israelis Jews that object to funding this process are being "pickayunish".
DeleteLet's see the article.
Jacob. To not rent or sell to illegal aliens is against the law.
DeleteAlso, we might respond to you if you allowed for comments in your blog. At least, not available at FFF.
1. “Open borders” and “closed borders” are always going to be problematic for a libertarian. Legalizing drugs but changing nothing else is also problematic since it means that meth cookers can move next door and their kids will go to your kids’ public school. None of these issues are problems in a private covenant community with private roads and schools that can ban “weirdos” (or require them). We should be proposing “legalizing” private covenant communities right now and worry about roads and other matters later. And we’re going to be called Racist Racist Racist when we do it. My primary response is that people tend to not engage in idiotic levels of discrimination in the free market but people ALWAYS vote tribal when there are public goods to be had. So just who is promoting a “Return to Rwanda” now?
ReplyDelete2. When the white supremacists or separatists adopt the NAP, it also means that the cosmopolitans and the trannies in the girls’ bathroom crowd can have their own neighborhoods too, without harassment from the evangelicals. And it means that the evangelicals can also have their neighborhoods and never have to encounter a “progressive”, atheist or a doper.
3. It seems to me that alt-righties, the cosmopolitans, the trannies in the bathroom crowd, the evangelicals, the religious Jews, the atheist Jews, Black Muslims and the Sunni Muslims can live in a separatist tribal community or one which is rigorously anti-tribal as they see fit. Human Action, their local knowledge, culture and beliefs, peer pressure and honest free market pricing will aid them in their decision. I have other things to worry about.
4. It seems as if Sheldon Richman is uncomfortable with people being allowed to choose being a non-cosmopolitan and he wants to use central planning to obtain the result he desires. He needs instead to think about being a covenant neighborhood entrepreneur which promises to screen out the yucky non-cosmopolitans.
5. Mr. Hornberger completely ignored the gist of BM’s post. For whatever that is worth.
Bob Roddis, for the open borders libertarians the day of freedom of association is literally never. The reason? The same reason why they advocate open borders for white people. Closed borders and freedom of association is is racist, leads to "muh holocaust" and so on and must never be allowed for white people.
DeleteBob,
DeleteAs usual, you make sense. I should be able to choose my friends and neighbors, as seems obvious. As it is, most of my friends ***happen*** to be white, but many are of African extraction, or Hispanic. I judge them one at a time.
I live in a country with VERY strict immigration rules, (I can't get a "green card", for instance), but at least I don't have to support illegals. They mass deported a Sh#%tload of Haitians recently, which if done by Trump would be the end of the world. Remind me of that business in the Constitution about "free association", please.
BM,
ReplyDeleteI find your posts and perspective very informative and thank you for them.
One question please. You stated;
"Regarding your questions, I have a half-dozen posts worth of points you have ignored.."
For those of us who have only recently started following your blog, could you publish links to previous posts that relate to the question?
Thank you again.
Click the link embedded in the post above, embedded I the sentence "Instead, I offer this post." In that post, the several articles are linked.
DeleteTo Tony:
ReplyDeleteOf course, the U.S. government's foreign wars and welfare programs (including refugee resettlemetn programs) violate the libertarian non-aggression principle. No libertarian would dispute that.
But the unstated implications of your point are that "Therefore, it's okay for the U.S. government to impose and enforce immigration controls unless and until it stops it foreign wars and welfare programs and that it's okay for libertarians to support these violations of the libertarian non-aggression principle as long as the government is doing these things."
I question that implication. I don't believe that libertarians should ever support any violation of the libertarian non-aggression principle regardless of what the government is doing. That's why I stated that we libertarians should never let statists or statist programs to manipulate or maneuver us into abandoing our libertarian principles and join up with the statists on any position. We should adhere to our principles and focus on ending the foreign wars, the welfare state, and other infringements on liberty. If we endorse statist programs, then how are we different from liberals and conservatives?
In a genuinely free society, whether anarchist or limited government, everything would be privately owned, including streets and roads. People would be free to go from private property to private property using the privately owned roads.
The owner of those private roads would have the right to let someone in Central America travel on them to come and stay in my home and work in my business. How would that infringe on your rights? He's not going into your home or your business. He's coming into my home or my business.
But that is precisely what immigration controls do--they interfere with my right to have whomever I want come into my home and my business. No one is saying that the personal from Central America has the right to enter your home or your business. No one is forcing you to open your home or your business to that person or forcing you to associate with the foreigner. But you and the government have no right to initiate force to prevent the person from Central America from coming into my home and my business.
That's one of the positive aspects of open borders--you have the right to continue discriminating against anyone you want, including on any basis you want--race, color, creed, national origin, or whatever. But you have no right to use force, either personally or through the government, to prevent me from associating with whomever I want. And that is precisely what immigration controls do.
You are absolutely right that Jews have the right to discriminate, just as Catholics, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, socialists, and other people do. But no government, including the U.S. government, the Israeli government, the Chinese government, or any other government should be discriminating against people on the basis of color, creed, religion, political beliefs, and national origin. There is no inherent reason why Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and others cannot live in peace and harmony, even while having the right to dscriminate against others on a private basis. As I stated previously, libertarian principles work universally, not just for the American people.
Jacob
"I question that implication. I don't believe that libertarians should ever support any violation of the libertarian non-aggression principle regardless of what the government is doing."
DeleteSo you say but you are perfectly fine with the government to further violate NAP and force me to pay taxes for welfare, to whatever additional increment, for illegal aliens.
Give us a blueprint, the steps that realistically can be pursued, to bring about this libertarian world of yours. A plan that does not violate NAP at any stage.
Jacob:
DeleteOf course, the U.S. government's barriers to migration violate the libertarian non-aggression principle. No libertarian would dispute that.
But the unstated implications of your point are that "Therefore, it's okay for the U.S. government to wage refugee-spawning wars and to subsidize refugee resettlement unless and until it stops creating those barriers to migration and that it's okay for libertarians to support these violations of the libertarian non-aggression principle as long as the government is doing these things."
See? Two can play that game.
To Unhappy Conservative: When immigrants enter a country, it is not an "invasion." An invasion is what the U.S. government did to Iraq: death, destruction, bombs, missiles, torture, abuse, incarceration, and the like.
ReplyDeleteNot surprisingly, people are fleeing the bombs, missiles, torture, abuse, death, and destruction. Why do they do that instead of staying put? The answer is simple: they want to live and they want to save the lives of their spouses, parents, and children. It's entirely rational. Almost certain death vs. the slight chance that you and your family will succeed in escaping it. I think you might make the same choice if you found yourself in the same or similar situation.
The libertarian solution is not forcible repatriation, especially knowing that such initiation of force will mean almost certain death to the people being repatriated. The solution is to stop the U.S. government from initiating foreign wars while, at the same time, serving as a sanctuary for people wishing to save their lives from almost certain death.
That was in fact the foreign policy of the United States for its first 100 years: no going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and open immigration for anyone wishing to flee those monsters.
Jacob
You go first. As soon as we bring home the troops and het rid of welfare and government owned properties, then I will agree with opening the borders. Intil tben, all you espouse is a predilection as to on whom you will violate NAP.
DeleteYou may want to get a copy of the anually updated uSA Congress' report, the latest titled "Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2016"
DeleteIndeed seeking monsters to destroy. And not just abroad and really even before 1798.
Jacob,
DeleteThere are so many lies here it is hard to know where to start.
When "immigrants" violently attack police at European borders they are obviously just peace loving entrepreneurs. The "immigrants" who raped 1400 children in Rotterdam were just sexual entrepreneurs.
You will not accept the category of invaders to describe millions of fighting age men hostile to Europe being imported according to a plan devised by billionaire globalists like George Soros and Peter Sutherland. It doesn't look like Iraq because the real war, the race war, hasn't started yet. The coming European War is going to make Iraq look like a picnic.
The idea that these people are all fleeing warzones is another lie. Some of these wars have been going on for over a decade and this is happening now because it is coordinated and planned by the oligarchy. It is a population replacement program designed to destroy the European nations.
You act like you are proposing a solution by sticking to your anti-war talking points. The same SCUM who are responsible for these wars are the ones pushing for, and funding, "refugee" resettlement. It is a political weapon imposed on a subject population against their will. Dissent is silenced with jail or a gang of communist thugs with baseball bats.
Believe it or not I wouldn't have a problem with real refugees provided the following:
1. They are not state funded and have a private sponsor.
2. They commit ZERO crimes (and if they do commit violent crimes, both they and their sponsor need to hang).
3. They return home when the danger has passed.
Obviously this is not the situation we are dealing with. Quite the opposite.
I have experience with Somali "refugees" in Oregon. Lowest filth I have ever encountered. If you have children and are ok with your daughter around these animals then you are a terrible father. These people would regularly travel back and forth between Somalia. So much for certain death.
"That was in fact the foreign policy of the United States for its first 100 years: no going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and open immigration for anyone wishing to flee those monsters"
False. This country was for Europeans until the 1965 Immigration Act was rammed down our throats, largely due to Jewish influence (http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/immigration.pdf).
Lastly, since you went to bat for Sheldon Richman, will you do the same for his buddy Charles Johnson?
"National borders are a bloody stain on the face of the earth. Burn all nations to the ground." (Johnson, https://c4ss.org/content/21916)
You would be forgiven for thinking that was quote from Leon Trotsky.
Unhappy Conservative. I'm a Rothbardian ancap. There is nothing in your post that I disagree with. Just a thought. Is it natural for a "refugee" from the ME or Africa to go to Oregon or freezing Minnesota? If there was a war in Kansas, would Kansans go to Sweden or would they go to Oklahoma or Texas? These people are purposely being sent to Western countries to destabilize them. It's orchestrated!
DeleteTo Jaime in Texas:
ReplyDeleteI advocate libertarianism for every society, including Mexico. Libertarian principles work universally. It is the key to ending all the crises that are rooted in socialism and interventionism (including the drug war, immigration, and healthcare) and the key to achieving a free, prosperous, and harmonious society. The best thing Mexico could ever do is adopt libertarian principles. (A good place to start would be by legalizing drugs even if the U.S. government disapproves.)
You're right: No one forces illegal immigrants to trespass onto people's farms and ranches along the border. It's a choice they make but only because the government prevents them from crossing at, say, the international bridge. The thing is this: A simple law that says "Entry into the U.S. is forbidden" would never work because people aren't going to obey it. So, the next step is border guards, which then induce people to cross by trespassing on people's ranches and farms. End the original law (and all the enforcement measures) and people will go back to simply crossing at the international bridges and other crossing points.
To Matt@Occidentalism.org
No one should be forced to fund anything. But by the same token, the fact that the government is violating the libertarian non-aggression principle in that way cannot legitimately be used as a justification for endorsing more government violations of libertarian principles. Let's continue adhering to libertarian principles and focus on ending the infringements on liberty. Otherwise, if we let the statists maneuver us or manipulate us into supporting their statist programs, how are we libertarians different from liberals and conservatives?
By the same token, libertarian principles, including open borders, does not entail forcing you to associate with people that you don't want to associate with. You are free to not associate with blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Catholics, bigots, or anyone else to your heart's content. What you cannot do is forcibly interfere, either personnally or through the government, with my right to associate with anyone else. That's what immigration controls do.
I notice that none of you, including Bionic, has addressed what I call the Achille's heel of the immigration control faction of the libertarian movement: How do you feel about Trump's Wall, eminent domain to acquire the property to build the wall, the use of force or the threat of force to collect the money to pay for the wall, warrantless searches of ranches and farms near the border, domestic highway checkpoints and domestic airport checkpoints that ask people for their papers, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, raids on privately owned homes and businesses, criminal prosecutions of people who harbor, transport, or hire illegal immigrants, and forcible separation of families through deportations? Why the silence on this particular critically important issue, at least insofar as the libertarian non-aggression principle is concerned?
Jacob
The only point I'm seeing pleaded that's likely to move the conversation anywhere is Decentralization, but last I understood Jacob isn't entirely on board with it - Maybe Sheldon isn't either, now it's about "Extreme Cosmopolitanism", which sounds like a new attempt to sell globalism.
DeleteA decentralized world might allow Jacob to explore this theory to it's absolute limits.
“But the unstated implications of your point are that "Therefore, it's okay for the U.S. government to impose and enforce immigration controls unless and until it stops foreign wars and welfare programs and that it's okay for libertarians to support these violations of the libertarian non-aggression principle as long as the government is doing these things."
ReplyDeleteWhat I cannot understand is why you ignore the fact that the USA welfare state’s controlled borders favoring welfare eligible immigration increases the support for aggression. Libertarianism can’t arise from these circumstances. How can libertarians change that…tax funded schools populated by teachers earning tax funded paychecks seem to an insurmountable roadblock.
There is a double standard to your sentence above, in that from your perspective you could as easily write, it’s OK to support a border control violation of the libertarian NAP, as long as government is doing that.
Jacob. Have you asked the indians what is their view of open borders and un-assimilation?
ReplyDeleteOpen-border libertarians exhort closed-border libertarians to shrug off the mass-immigration subsidies and forced-association laws, neither of which would exist in the absence of the State, and welcome the migration of alien and hostile cultures in their midst.
ReplyDeleteClosed-border libertarians can just as justifiably exhort open-border libertarians to shrug off the barriers to migration, which also wouldn't exist in the absence of the State, and welcome the movement to end mass-immigration subsidies and forced-association laws.
The default migration position in a fully privatized social order is no trespassing, not massive trespassing. It's not closed-border libertarians' fault government has created a tragedy of the commons with its seizure of wide swathes of property.
To Tony: you're missing my point. To clarify, let's say the government is infringing on freedom in four ways: foreign wars, welfare state, drug laws, and immigration controls (all forcibly funded through taxation).
ReplyDeleteLibertarians would naturally oppose all four infringements on liberty as being violative of the libertarian non-aggression principle.
Let's say one is asked whether any of those four infringements on liberty should be repealed. The libertarian would naturally say: "All four should be repealed!"
But let's say that we are close to getting only two of them repealed--drug laws and immigration controls.
What then? The conservative would respond: "We can't legalize drugs until Medicaid is abolished because drug addicts will go on welfare, which will cause the rest of us to pay higher taxes. As soon as Medicaid is abolished, we can abolish drug laws."
The libertarian would say: "Abolish drug laws now, regardless of Medicaid and taxation. They constitute a horrific violation of the principles of liberty."
Suppose one is asked the same question with respect to immigration controls. The conservative would respond: "We can't repeal this infringement on liberty because of welfare and foreign wars. As soon as foreign wars and welfare are ended, we can end immigration controls"
The libertarian says: "Immigration controls (like drugs laws) are such an eggregious infringement on liberty that they should be abolished immediately, regardless of welfare and foreign wars. Then, we'll focus on ending the rest of the infringements on liberty.'
If we make repeal of some infringements on liberty dependent on repealing other infringements on liberty, the free society becomes a never-never proposition. And as I have previously stated, if we libertarians permit statists or statist programs to manuever or manipulate us into endorsing the continuation of statist programs, then how are we libertarians different from liberals, conservatives, and other statists?
Jacob
One more thing and then I'll shut up. The difference between immigration and invasion warrants further discussion.
ReplyDeleteSay Mohammedan hordes wielding AK-47s land on the shores of Sicily. After a campaign of rape and plunder, vigorously resisted by the Italian government and armed local militias, they institute (freelance) Sharia law at the point of their guns.
Now say unarmed Mohammedan hordes swarm the shores of Sicily. After a campaign of rape and plunder, dutifully ignored when not enthusiastically subsidized by the oh-so-tolerant Italian government, they seize the machinery of democracy and vote themselves (government-payroll) Sharia law.
What's the lesson here? That Sicilians and "their" government ought not to resist the armed invaders because the Mohammedans can just as "peaceably" seize the machinery of democracy and vote themselves (government-payroll) Sharia law?
Left-libertarians get right-libertarians all wrong. We don't want to enlist the government to keep our ancestral homelands free of alien and hostile elements. We don't even trust it to do that. We want separation of borders and state.
To Tony: No one is asking you to shrug off any government infringements on liberty. What I am simply saying is: No libertarian should ever support any infringement on liberty or use other infringements on liberty to serve as an excuse for supporting infringements on liberty. Libertarians should adhere strictly to principle and always stand for repeal of any and all infringements on liberty. If statists succeed in inducing libertarians to join up on some statist programs (e.g., drug laws and immigration controls) by enacting other statist programs (e.g. Medicaid, welfare for foreigners), then they will have won. They only chance that libertarians have for achieving a free society is by sticking to their principles by standing for a repeal of all infringements on liberty.
ReplyDeleteJacob
To Jr: I don't ignore the welfare state aspects of immigration, including public schooling. What I am saying is: We libertarians should focus on ending that wrongdoing, not adding to the wrongdoing by letting the statists maneuver and manipulate us into joining up with them by supporting any of their infringements on liberty. Anyway, there is such a prejudice against providing welfare for foreigners, have you thought about the possibility that open borders could serve as a catalyst for Americans to repeal the entire welfare state, including public schooling? Moreover, there is also the fact that Congress has the power to enact a law that says: No welfare for foreigners. The states also have the power to exempt foreigners from public schooling (which would be the greatest thing that could ever happen to their children). Also, studies have shown that the net benefit that immigrants bring society is on the positive side, given their strong work ethic and energy. Moreover, many of them pay Social Security taxes for years and then return home without ever claiming Social Security. Regardless, let us libertarians adhere to principle by showing why public schooling, welfare statism, imperialism, the drug war, and the like should be repealed rather than endorse more infringements on liberty. Otherwise we become like them. What could be worse than that?
ReplyDeleteJacobb
I appreciate your thoughts and your time, busy as you are answering the many comments.
DeleteHowever, the border under consideration is not an open border; rather it is a border controlled by politicians, who are including some while excluding others. This is the unjustifiable favoritism/discrimination you are protesting. Last century, Christians and Jews were included, Muslims excluded. Europeans were included, the rest excluded. This century, it is the reverse. Even illegal immigration is a politically controlled permission, not a universal freedom, impervious to withdrawal.
The comments prove to me that the issue underlying all these issues is government vs. anarchy. Who should control property and its corollary borders …autonomous people who earn the profits or an authority controlling all property and people. The word “should” requires a goal…if one’s goal is NAP complacent peaceful prosperity, there can be no one in a position using legal, socially acceptable aggression.
A majority acceptance of aggression as means to peaceful prosperity will fail, as that is a relationship in which the greatest profits are not those of enrichment via exchange and charity, but enrichment via political favoritism and redistribution of tax dollars. The incessant clamor for favoritism, usually fulfilled as every politician’s only purpose is to favor some by exploiting others, ends with the 100% control of totalitarianism or revolution.
Your greatest objection seems to be discrimination, yet discrimination is necessary to all state relationships, as the only justification of a state is the defense of the politically decided acceptable from the politically unacceptable, inevitably accomplished in whatever way power mongers see as the most personally profitable.
“…have you thought about the possibility that open borders could serve as a catalyst for Americans to repeal the entire welfare state, including public schooling?” Yes, and concluded that despite world wide, historical and current attempts to create differences by which to redistribute profits, human minds are much alike, susceptible to propaganda when its results are profitable, either in an improved self image or greater wealth.
To Unhappy Conservative:
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right that some immigrants commit violent crimes, just as some Americans commit violent crimes. But most immigrants, like most Americans, don't commit violent crimes. Where is the justice in imposing a collective guilt on all immigrants (or all Americans)? Why not simply prosecute those immigrants for assault, rape, theft, and the like, just as we prosecute some Americans for such crimes?
We will have to agree to disagree on what an invasion is. I continue to hold that it entails what the U.S. government has done to Iraq and what it did to Vietnam. Massive death and destruction through state violence. That's not what the European refugees are doing. I question your assertion that it's all part of some vast left-wing conspiracy for Muslims or Arabs to take over the world. If the Middle East were not aflame in death and destruction, much of it rooted in U.S. interventionism, there never would have been a refugee crisis in Europe.
You are incorrect in your assertion that "this country was for Europeans until 1965." Throughout most of the 19th century, there were no immigration controls except for a cursory health inspection as Ellis Island. Also, when you say "Europeans" let's keep in mind that there was extreme prejudice against Italians (they called them wops) and also against Irish immigrants. In the Southwest, the borders were complete open after the U.S. stole the northern half of Mexico in the Mexican War. Not even cursory health inspections. People were free to cross back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border. On the west coast, completely open borders, which enabled millions of Chinese and Japanese to come to America. They were not Europeans--they were Asians. See Chinatown in San Francisco. See the WW2 concentation camps for Japanese-Americans. In fact, the first immigration control law wasn't enacted until the late 1800s--the Chinese Exclusion Act, which marked the beginning of the statist era in America (eg, socialism, interventionism, eugenics, fascism, militarism, and imperialism).
Jacob
And yet, libertarian principles allows for voluntary associations, even to the establishment of community of like-minded libertarians, to the exclusion of non-libertarians.
DeleteWith which people/persons do you think you have a higher likelihood of having a common set of principles, an European or a Huaorani?
Jacob,
ReplyDeleteYou said:
"What I am simply saying is: No libertarian should ever support any infringement on liberty or use other infringements on liberty to serve as an excuse for supporting infringements on liberty. Libertarians should adhere strictly to principle and always stand for repeal of any and all infringements on liberty."
Through this entire exchange I believe the point you are not acknowledging is, open-borders "policy" in the real world as it exists today is a de facto NAP violation. As BM has repeatedly said, there is no libertarian answer to the borders question in the real world *as it exists today*.
Thank you, Patrick, for your last sentence. There are so many points Jacob raises, from a pure NAP standpoint, with which I cannot disagree - and I have told him so.
DeleteHowever, there are many points I raise, from a pure NAP standpoint, with which Jacob cannot disagree (if he would be honest). He has found it impossible to recognize this.
There is no pure NAP answer in a world with state borders. If one asks me my position from a pure NAP standpoint, this is all I can say.
So true BM..Especially when we are dealing with Un-elected Supranational governing bodies and or Groups of Men aligned (sometimes) that have many nation states in their back pockets already with the insolvent Central Banking Scam.
DeleteThe old Privileged Classes don't play by text book realities or in this thread's discussion of theoretical Libertarian framework. This tyranny is much more sophisticated than just a Hunnic tribe fixing to sweep down from mountain and wreak havoc on the village. Multifaceted and very deceiving form of Evil we have here.
The NAP applies to individuals, not groups.
DeleteJack, I am sure you have a point and I would like to understand it. To whom is your comment directed, and what, exactly, are you getting at?
DeleteBM, it was in response to Patrick Szar’s remark: “open-borders "policy" in the real world as it exists today is a de facto NAP violation.” Such a use of the term NAP renders it meaningless. Further, aggressions are actions (like what ICE does), not inactions or less action, as a more open national borders policy would have.
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DeleteWhile I lean towards restricting immigration, I am under no illusions that it is just one unpleasant trade-off for another. What is particularly unpleasant is dragging away perfectly respectable people who came here is children and who are now fully Americanized. In law, there is a defense called “laches” due to the expiration of significant time before complaining about an issue.
ReplyDeleteFurther, I’m never comfortable attacking other libertarians on much of anything (not that they don’t deserve it), especially when there are people around like “Vox Day” towards whom I should direct my energies:
“YOU ARE NO EUROPEANS"
They are not. And they never will be. That's why they have to go back.
********************
It's time for the God-Emperor to tell the 80 million post-1965 Not Americans the same thing. They are not Americans and they never will be. America desperately needs its own Reconquista while Europe launches its version 2.0.
600,000 Mexicans were stripped of their US citizenship and deported by President Eisenhower. So don't even try to claim it's not possible or that it's not Constitutional. It is possible, it is legal, it is Constitutional, and there is legal precedent for both naturalized and natural-born citizens. And most of all, it is absolutely necessary for the survival of the USA, the American people, and Western civilization.
You may not like to hear that. But history clearly dictates that the two most likely alternatives are a) continent-wide war or b) the end of Western civilization.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/03/you-are-no-europeans.html
Tribalism is a serious problem for a social democracy because the government controls most everything and the winning tribe thus claims and has control of everything. It’s now quite a problem even between White Euro left “progressives” and White Euro social conservative Trump “progressives” under our ever increasing social democracy. Under laissez faire, it’s not such a problem because people tend to purchase value, not tribalism.
"winning tribe"
DeleteI like that. More and more it seems like the tribes aren't even a majority but a plurality.
I also like a tribe's ability to stick together and move forward. Perpetual debate is starting to wear thin on me. Is the concept of liberty too high-minded and divisive to be the basis for a viable system in place of big government?
Brutus,
DeleteIndeed. And what of brining in people for whom liberty is literally a foreign concept? Especially when they can vote themselves goodies from the pockets of people for whom they feel no affinity, and may even despise.
"And what of brining in people for whom liberty is literally a foreign concept?"
DeleteWell, it's been my experience that brining usually helps the flavor of most meats. I've never tried humans, so I'm not sure if certain political affiliations vary in taste but, if there is a difference, brining would help.
The cannibalization of the libertarian movement, however, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe that's what libertarianism is: an ideological mindset for the sake of argument.
Jacob, since you ignore everything written, I will repeat here what I wrote a few months ago. It directly deals with your claim that border enforcement is the worst violation of liberty possible.
ReplyDeleteOf course one of the reasons that most libertarians demand open borders is because they refuse to accept that the cascade of NAP violations that results from the open borders are in fact NAP violations. On the other hand their sense of NAP violation is highly tuned when it comes to the state turning away a foreigner with a criminal record for murder at the border - how dare the government violate the rights of this poor man!
This leads me to believe that their highest value is the undermining of Western civilization, and they believe that libertarianism is the way to get to that goal, just as some socialists believe that socialism/communism is the way to achieve that goal. To summarize, libertarianism is the means of ending western civilization, not the end.
There is a difference between the nation and the state, although the cultural Marxist libertarians conflate the two just like the statists. The nation state came about as peoples (biologically and culturally related people, AKA nations) demanded states that represented their interests, states controlled by and for the benefit of the nation. Before that nations would often be ruled by foreigners (at least in Europe).
So what you see is "libertarians" supporting the state in betraying the nation. What a coincidence that you have libertarians that just happen to support current state policies, and even demand such policies be ramped up.
What is to be done about libertarians that work against the nation? To my mind you treat them exactly the same as the traitor state. If you betray your tribal affiliation you get exiled or otherwise forcibly removed from society
As a newcomer to libertarianism, here is what I understand:
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Sheldon Richman: you have to allow immigration to be a consistent libertarian. It is a matter of True Social Justice, i.e. advancing and upholding property rights. Let us make Justice so that the World does not perish. Also, it will bring about good results, of the same kind of all deregulation.
Secondly, Walter Block: To be a libertarian means to measure everything by the non-aggression axiom. All State actions are in violation of that axiom. This includes prohibition of migration, forced migration, and any kind of regulation or "social program" that tries to prevent humans from making their own decisions and be responsible for them. Therefore, you should not favor State regulation on migration and call yourself a libertarian.
Thirdly, Bionicmosquito: Our superior western culture is about to be anihilated due to the continuous aggression of the State, one of whose modes is "open borders globalism". We need even more aggression of the State against us in order to prevent the State from destroying us by aggressing against us in the first place (!?!?!?!?!).
As a newcomer, I believe that Richman and Block, and Hornberger and Ebeling, and Mises and Hayek, are all much better libertarians than Bionicmosquito and Hoppe.
You guys are confused or obnoxious. Probably both. Please, go back to square one: Henry Hazlitt. And compare. Just compare where we are and where were them.
You completely mis-state my position and then declare ME confused?
DeleteYou are rather obnoxious, but I knew this was coming given the feigned humility shown in your opening sentence.