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I know for some of you this is getting old, but someone has
to do the dirty work.
Jacob Hornberger has a piece entitled “A
Strong Government Equals a Weak Nation.”
If this is correct – and I agree with it completely – then
what would a government that desires to be “strong” want to accomplish? Before answering the question, let’s clarify
the term “nation”:
A nation (from Latin: natio, "people, tribe, kin, genus,
class, flock") is a large group or collective of people with common
characteristics attributed to them — including language, traditions, mores (customs), habitus (habits), and ethnicity. By comparison, a nation is more
impersonal, abstract, and overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a
cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity,
and particular interests.
Consider what unhampered, open borders would do to such a “nation.” I guess it depends – do the immigrants share “common
characteristics” such as “language, traditions, mores (customs), habitus
(habits), and ethnicity”? Or do the
immigrants come with substantially different characteristics than the existing
population?
For the most part, immigrants during the first 150 years of
the American experience held characteristics common to the general population; for
the most part, immigrants of the last 50 years of the American experience did
not.
So…what would a government that desires to be “strong”
choose to do about the “nation” that it governs? It isn’t a trick question; Jacob gave the
answer right in his headline.
What does this suggest about libertarians who advocate for
open borders? Either it suggests that they also advocate for strong government
or it suggests that they cannot get beyond elementary thinking in libertarian
theory or application.
Which is it, Jacob?
Or is sloppy thinking that leads to sloppy language?
ReplyDeleteYou nailed him on the meaning of Nation but how about we take a look at the first part as well?
Now I am well aware that when I argue for a strong state the libertarian reaction is to reach for their revolver, but hear me out.
Here we have again the conflation, by Hornberger, of a "strong" and "big" State. How "strong" is a state that "misplaces" 6.5 trillion dollars (pentagon)? Is the actual power of the State increased by having a bloated bureaucratic gravy train? Is it the power of the state that institutions like the CIA and the NSA bolster? AIPAC?
Now I submit that both Hornberger's minarchism and Hoppe's "anarchism" require a strong state (or a state-like entity in the case of the later). I would define "strength" (and here we are back at the very beginning) as sovereignty (and sovereignty per Schmitt). It does not matter (for my purpose here) what specific entity is performing the function of sovereign, but someone will be performing it.
You have hit on the contradiction before of open-borders minarchism, it really strains credulity that it is possible someone actually believes that. If you reduce the function of the state to protection of property and administration of law, then the State MUST exclude people from entry or else they will pose a challenge to the legitimacy of the state (since the state will be failing to provide protection against the inevitable problem elements.) This scheme is even more absurd if you allow voting.
Now the same is true of Hoppean "anarchism." People are going to form sovereign communities and the communities will exercise discrimination and exclusion against outsiders or internal problems. Now you may want to play word games as to whether this entity is a "state" (it is no doubt qualitatively different than the present State), but it is certainly strong. No?
If have a property on the frontier, your claim to that property is directly related to "strength" of your claim, which is your ability to secure it with force. Land mines, barbed wire, and machine guns (very libertrarian) improve external security and a strong pimp hand around the household improves internal security.
The same principles apply to a community and to a nation.
My nutshell position on power is that it should be exercised openly and absolutely. Liberal schemes of divided power sound nice if you are dealing with a degenerate monarch, but it leads to a situation in which predators are able to wedge into key nodes and create a shadow power.
Again,
Who is King and what is his kingdom?
Your points are sound; in the end, some "entity" must be strong enough to defend the property it owns or is otherwise obligated to defend...else the property will be lost.
DeleteI am most comfortable with your Hoppean "anarchism" example, as you know; but in the end your property is that which you (or your agents - call them whatever you like) can defend.
I was encouraged recently when I found out that there's a "good guy" on my island with ***TWO*** M-50's.
Delete"..in the end, some "entity" must be strong enough to defend the property it owns or is otherwise obligated to defend.."
DeleteYou may be interested in some examples of that concept which I just found, that of the Prairie Banditti>
Short but very informative read here.:
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/ogle/banditti.html
Maybe off topic but Learned Hand's quote came to mind. "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…" Open borders libertarians are fooling themselves if they believe that bringing in an unlimited amount of people, most of whom are anti-liberty, will not result is less liberty. What will stop them from further diminishing our remaining liberties? If you don't stop them at the border, you won't stop them.
DeleteBionic--
ReplyDeletePlease define the nation living with in the borders controlled by the US government, including the shared "language, traditions, mores (customs), habitus (habits), and ethnicity."
Waiting.
Is it defined by the SJW movement alternatively protesting in the streets and seeking safe spaces? What about the insidious supporters of the welfare state? What about the progressives who know how you should live your life better than you? Or is it defined by the bloodlust of neocon and conservative warmongers?
Or is it your fantastical halcyon world of Norman Rockwell, which I hear existed for 21 minutes starting at 6:16 pm on December 14, 1956?
Please clarify since you only use precise language.
Mosin
DeleteYou have stated the problem precisely, yet you are too obnoxious and uneducated to see it.
That's about as precise as I can be.
Mosin,
DeleteSee David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed" if you are actually interested in ethnography of America.
Obviously much has changed by 20th century America. We see the gradual disappearance of regional dialects and an increasing rootlessness due to economic pressures.
America could have been several nations but instead there are none. For this I blame D.C.
For instance, there was certainly a southern nation but it was subjected to invasion and "reconstruction" by the imperial capitol. Many Southerners still see themselves as belonging to a nation.
See here:
https://southernfuture.com/
http://www.dixienet.org/
occidentaldissent.com
The entire problem is a hostile state deliberately obstructing organic regional culture.
What are you confused about?
Bitter.
DeleteAgain, indignation as your defense -- the hallmark of the left. It is obvious that you have no definition of nation -- at least none you are wiling to share ... hmmm. Yet you assert nation as your argument. Hmmm.
Very imprecise. But the standard here.
2 + 2 = 4; 4 + 4 = 8; 8 + 8 = 16....
DeleteCute. Bitter, but cute.
DeleteAnd thanks for confirming your lack of an argument. I like being proved right.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteUnhappy --
DeleteI realize you pine for the halcyon days of Normanew Rockwell, as does Bionic. Yet those days existed only in paintings.
Ignored is any realization that the genesis of the demise of "the gold old days" is homegrown. Even the hallowed heaths and heathers of Great Britain have fallen. So the stock itself is not healthy, rotting at the root.
I suggest you read the Bionics of 100 years ago to see that the very same he says today was said of my ancestors. Yet he now claims those migrations were good.
Be like Bionic, give up your liberties to the state in defense of a past that never existed, except in Bionic's lazy dreams on cold spring days.
With each intervention, the state will say, "It's all for our eternal nation." And you will cheer, all in the name of liberty.
Mosil: I asked you before, but you didn't answer, so I'll ask again:
DeleteIf all US whites of European descent stopped having babies today and the population total was replaced by immigrants and minority births, what would the US look like in 80 years? Does that matter to you? Do u think I shouldn't care? These are basically just anthropological questions at this point.
This is the despicable part:
"Is it defined by the SJW movement alternatively protesting in the streets and seeking safe spaces? What about the insidious supporters of the welfare state? What about the progressives who know how you should live your life better than you? Or is it defined by the bloodlust of neocon and conservative warmongers?"
Every group you listed is openly preach/taught to think negatively about white people and especially white men. We are the only interest group that is an unthought. I don't even want an interest group!!!
You can not make every ethnic group have a political interest group, that magically align!,(Bionic, do you have an essential Gramsci reading?) and put it at war with the only non-political undefined interest group, whites. They are manipulating these people against whites!!!
So why do democrat/progressive/leftist hate whites, or really white culture? Or whiteness
I think this is where UC will disagree. At the bottom its property law. Here it is, (meta) White Culture!!= likes to plan, it demands respect for its things (This isn't to say having lots of things is of all importance) it keeps its stuff/life together, etc, all of this stuff builds security and a knowable future!
So it/culture made property law!! (Or nah, property law is dumb and bad, the people should fight, I mean hand out all the stuff because we have politicians that are fare and are smarter than us)
At the bottom of that contract is a declaration by Law that it is yours. It protects you from everyone around you. I think this is why the left hates whites, but they hate property first, they hate the exclusion of their will.
I want to be clear, white or Western European culture developed property law to suit its purposes. You lose Mosil if you don't respond. (I don't think you can remain obtuse on this issue anymore) I want this fight bc I don't think I cant lose, prove me wrong!! Property is exclusionary, that is what they hate, it excludes their will materially, in this world. If the whites are shamed and driven into the ground, I see no upper limit to their "will" being imposed. North Korea comes to mind.
Mosil, please try not to get triggered, stop and think. It isn't a fundamental fact of reality that only whites live like this, obviously, but as long as the left has these ppl under its spell(possessed) everyone will suffer (for hating whites, it's history, and it's property law). But I'm willing to make it a racial argument, I would live in an all white country to exclude this demonic left. If they don't stop, secession is the next step, I honestly think it is inevitable now.
UC: Isn't property the ultimate illiberal(in the context u use it) law? It gives the right to all people to exclude. Could this be for the same reason they hate nationalism?
"It excludes us from there will" Take that exclusion down to the individual, there is no reason a nation wouldn't exist. I think it would be the strongest ever and exist potentially for a very long time
Thoughts anyone?
PS: Sorry Bionic, I had to repost this to fix the typos
He has a twitter account, with a tweet on this article that can be reply tweeted:
Deletehttps://twitter.com/jacobhornberger?lang=en
FM, regarding Gramsci I have written one significant piece; you can decide if it is "essential" :-)
Deletehttp://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2015/07/antonio-gramsci-libertarians.html
Marx went after property; Gramsci thought the way to spread communism was by attacking culture. The "Cultural Marxists" are actually Cultural Gramscists.
Mosin,
DeleteI don't care for Norman Rockwell. I much prefer neo-classical pillars adorned with spinning crosses and Roman eagles that the imperial legions march between on their way to great the glorious leader- who will salute them from a balcony before giving a moving speech about the ETERNAL GLORY of the NATION. All set to Wagner.
FM,
Delete[Isn't property the ultimate illiberal(in the context u use it) law? It gives the right to all people to exclude. Could this be for the same reason they hate nationalism?]
Yes. Exactly right. If property exclusively is allowed to determine the social order you will end up very quickly with a quasi-feudal society. It will be extremely hierarchical and not amenable to people like Sheldon Richman or Charles Johnson.
This has been my thesis regarding Hoppe. He started taking libertarianism away from its classical liberal roots to a more "illiberal" direction- to save it from itself. Its no coincidence his book spends the first half or so explaining why monarchy and feudalism are better than democracy LOL.
Mosin,
DeleteI'll come out an say it. On net, the immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century, were a negative.
FM:
Delete"At the bottom its property law. Here it is, (meta) White Culture!!= likes to plan, it demands respect for its things (This isn't to say having lots of things is of all importance) it keeps its stuff/life together, etc, all of this stuff builds security and a knowable future!
eir will."
Whites created largest state in the history of the world, virtually constantly at war with some people somewhere throughout its history, presently with military boots in over 100 countries, and a quasi-police state on much of its citizens. That’s far from protecting property law in any meaningful sense.
Me: Chinese ppl are generally shorter than whites
DeleteJack: no way look at Yao Ming
Me: (face palm)
Me: Blacks are generally more athletic than whites.
Jack: nah, look at the NHL
Me: (face palm)
Come on man, did all races equally come up with property rights? Stop being afraid of making what are painfully obvious observations
It's funny Hornberger doesn't have comments on his blog. I imagine he enjoys not giving the opportunity for criticism to be publicly visible. When I read his posts, I don't get the impression he's concerned with being correct, but being heard. With a name like FFF I also think he enjoys the air of supremacy of opinion within the freedom-minded.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I think blogs are designed to create conversation. As such I don't consider his a blog at all.
Open Borders, or a policy of diversity generally, necessitates the creation of a police state because resource competition and communal strife is not tempered by national affinity.
ReplyDeleteNo, it just means that they don't believe the state has any business telling anyone where they can live or for whom they can work -- or for that matter, whom they may invite on their own property, to whom they may sell or rent their own property, or whom they may employ.
ReplyDeleteIf the United State can tell Jose that he's not allowed to live in a certain region, regardless of what peaceful arrangements he may make, it can do the same to you or me.
What "characteristics common to the general population" do immigrants of the last fifty years lack?
ReplyDeleteGenerally not Christian, generally not from Europe.
DeleteDon't worry we'll all be one Big Ghetto'ed Hip Hop Third World Family in less than a generation.
ReplyDeleteWhen you introduce a non sophisticated populous (generally speaking), don't want to offend anybody...coupled to a European Egalitarian system (Welfare all State Intervention), you have the beginning of the End taking place. I see it where I am...just 25 years...and especially in the last 10 to 15.
The Elite are bringing in the Shock Troops to destroy the Liberal Order or somewhat adherence to Property Rights that European Immigrants generally accepted. They want Dominion over Earth and beyond if possible. Pretty devious bunch, and quite unassuming in their approach...No Godzilla breathing fire on Tokyo...sometimes more on the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
BM,
ReplyDeleteIn my above post I mentioned how it takes us back to the "beginning." I was referring to a dialogue we had almost exactly one year ago.
Found here: http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-preconditions.html
I enjoyed re-reading the comments on this and maybe you would too. I think now that you understand my position better you may pick up on some things you missed before since it will easier to read between the lines.
I was not being dishonest or disingenuous but I was definitely trying to package my arguments in the most libertarian way possible. I don't bother to do that anymore. Not because I don't sympathize with some libertarians like Nick B and yourself, but because its not *my* frame.
Similarly, re-reading the Hornberger saga is also amusing.
UC, your positions are clear. When I think back to our earliest dialogue and my views, I consider the following:
Delete1) I have grown to believe the cultural soil is the precondition to achieving and maintaining a reasonably libertarian order. This I consider a significant event in my intellectual journey.
2) Too many libertarians too often can think no further than chanting NAP, NAP.
Our dialogue has most certainly contributed to this.
I am certain there are some places where I will never come into agreement with your views; I suspect it might have to do with my views of an afterlife.
In any case, I appreciate your contributions here.
I appreciate you letting me comment here.
DeleteUnderstanding is more important to me than agreement. Because my views lie (far) outside what Tom Woods calls "the 3x5 card of allowable opinion" a lot of people don't actually understand them, having never been presented with them.
I told you at the very beginning my goal was to be an ambassador for my ideological perspective. That is my only purpose. I am not a missionary. But I do want to put pressure on libertarian ideologues (I mean that term in a neutral sense) to see if their ideology can confront the existential problems of the age. On this account I have been pleasantly surprised by the willingness of some you to jump into the deep waters of the kulturkampf.
I do however believe that to fight the Diseased Order as a libertarian is to do it with one hand tied behind your back. But hey, I am open to being proved wrong.
Thank you BM, an honest man is hard to find.
“I appreciate you letting me comment here.”
DeleteYou have always been civil, and your comments are thought-provoking.
“I do however believe that to fight the Diseased Order as a libertarian is to do it with one hand tied behind your back. But hey, I am open to being proved wrong.”
Inherently this is right, so it won’t be me proving you wrong. The larger portion of the libertine movement feeds right into the Diseased Order (if I understand the meaning of your term).
I will add further, it will take more than one “skill” to fight this Diseased Order; properly understood and applied libertarian theory will have a role. But all of life is not answered by this theory. More importantly, we will never live on earth with humans under anything coming close to resembling the silver rule.
Romans 12: 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
But what if the Diseased Order is multi-generational, dating back centuries – even millennia? An earthly power cannot achieve such a feat. I will suggest, in this case, that no human power will defeat it.
Ephesians 6: 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
In this case, both you and I will need some help!
error...probably subconsciously, as the meaning should be clear.
Delete"The larger portion of the libertine movement..."
Amen mein bruder.
DeleteBionic--
ReplyDeleteYou really live in some fantastical past. If you were to have traveled outside your regional comfort zone, you would know that Europe hasn't been Christian for sixty plus years, maybe longer. And with any Kiznerian action knowledge, you would know that the current of the day's evil has its source in Europe. By the way, how many millions died due to that flow of thought?
Do you realize your doppelganger from a century ago said the very same about my Catholic grandparents, shouting , "No hunkies allowed," alongside Martha Sanger?
By the way, Finn is one scary dude. Deep down, I think you might be as well. I do believe I'll let you all waller in your hate. Ciao.
"Ciao."
DeleteIs this a promise?
Mosil: everything you asked for regarding culture, I answered thoroughly as I possibly could. I went out of my way to not offend. What did I say specifically that you disagree with and why, I truly want to hear a response.
Delete"Scary" yes it is scary. Speaking in RealTalk is scary. The circumstances are not my fault. Engage or you lose and you can leave as a coward.
Pretend I'm a minority if it helps!!