Saturday, April 8, 2017

Musings on Immigration and Running From the Truth



Today Jacob Hornberger, in his daily email, offered as the first reading an essay on immigration by Charles Johnson.  Jacob offered the version from FEE, entitled there: Why Free Immigration is a Right.

Now to speak in such terms is to speak of positive rights – as there is no right to enter, only a right to leave (absent some voluntary agreement to stay under certain conditions).

It is interesting that Jacob did not offer the version as originally published at C4SS, where it is entitled Against All Nations and Borders.  It isn’t only the title that is different, but I will come to this momentarily.

Johnson opens his piece as follows: “Liberty has nothing to do with national interests.”  He makes a compelling, and in pure theory perfectly accurate, argument.

But then he might as well write “Liberty has nothing to do with human nature.”  Because for all of recorded human history, humans have voluntarily grouped themselves with family and kin – those of similar cultural characteristics.

Too many shallow thinkers on this topic fail to differentiate between “nation” and “state.”  Or, for those of the communist bent, they understand the difference perfectly well and want to destroy both.  As Johnson is often featured at C4SS, in his case I suspect the latter; C4SS comes closer to being an advocate of communism than it does an advocate of liberty.  Nationalism is an anathema to communism.

Simpleton or communist; which is it?

It is interesting that FEE changed the title of Johnson’s piece.  It is also interesting that FEE dropped the last sentence from Johnson’s piece:

National borders are a bloody stain on the face of the earth. Burn all nations to the ground.

This, of course, also being the version Hornberger would rather you do not see.

Why is that?  If you are so proud of the idea, why hide it?  I give Johnson and C4SS at least credit for this much.  But Hornberger and FEE?

Jacob, an advocate of limited government, cannot avoid the reality of “borders” that his position entails.  His cognitive dissonance on this point is glaring (here and here, as examples).  His only way to avoid this – at least the only intellectually honest way – is to advocate for one world government; a position shared by communists of all stripes.

I asked this of FEE, in the comment section to the republished and modified version of Johnson’s piece.  Why change it?  Why hide the communist intent?  Why hide the desire to follow the advice of Antonio Gramsci?  C4SS certainly doesn’t hide their love of the man.

Checking the FEE post again, eight days after my comment, still no reply….

20 comments:

  1. bm,

    Just a note to let you know that your tenacity on this subject is, and has been, much appreciated.

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  2. "I asked this of FEE, in the comment section to the republished and modified version of Johnson’s piece. Why change it?"

    My guess is that last line can be taken as advocating violence against the state, which they don't support. He essentially likes the article except for the title and last line, so made changes for both. So what? And the author didn’t respond to anyone's posts, why should you be an exception? You can email FEE about it if you really want an answer.

    I found Leopardpm's posts to be very good.

    "Too many shallow thinkers on this topic fail to differentiate between “nation” and “state.”"

    Or maybe they do understand what both are and think they both go hand in hand. Since you like to cherry pick Rothbard's writings near the end of his life, he was one of those "shallow thinkers" for most of his adult life.

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    1. “He essentially likes the article except for the title and last line, so made changes for both. So what?”

      The changed and eliminated lines are the logical consequence of the idea of “immigration is a natural right” and open borders given all of the other influences in effect. To pretend it isn’t shows dishonesty. I give C4SS and Johnson credit, at least they don’t hide from this.

      “Since you like to cherry pick Rothbard's writings near the end of his life, he was one of those "shallow thinkers" for most of his adult life.”

      No cherry picking, I came to my conclusions long before I read Rothbard on this topic. Further, as Rothbard basically developed an integrated framework for libertarian political philosophy out of numerous schools of thought and from the thinking of several political philosophers, I hold nothing against him for whatever handful of areas with which I might disagree or that he subsequently corrected on his own.

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    2. "My guess is that last line can be taken as advocating violence against the state..."

      But, of course, the word they used was "nation," so I doubt this... or perhaps they are just sloppy thinkers.

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    3. Even still, nations are made up of people, so “burn all nations” could be taken as supporting violence against those people.

      If Rothbard was alive today and didn’t condemn ICE, a border wall and the blatant aggression and theft of private property it requires, he wouldn’t be integrating new beliefs into those he held during his anarchist libertarian years, he’d be fundamentally contradicting them.

      "Trump promised a border wall. Now these Texans worry the government will take their land"
      http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-border-wall-20170407-story.html

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    4. “Even still, nations are made up of people, so “burn all nations” could be taken as supporting violence against those people.”

      Johnson is using “nation” in a specific context in this essay. Your flailing attempts at defending whatever or whoever it is you are attempting to defend, or on whose behalf you are writing, ignore this.

      “If Rothbard was alive today and didn’t condemn ICE, a border wall and the blatant aggression and theft of private property it requires…”

      Of course, he would condemn these – as do I. The choice isn’t either / or (either open borders or body cavity searches at every highway rest area), as I have written too many times before to count.

      Unless you offer something new, something that I have not already addressed numerous times, I will bow out.

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    5. Jack, are you offering to cover the welfare costs of those people that you insist on letting into America? I am unwilling to pay, yet the government forces me to pay for them anyway.

      If you are unwilling to cover those costs, then your open borders activism is enabled by moral hazard.

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    6. Translation of what Jack is saying,

      "we will never be truly free until the only people with power are jewish bankers."

      I am getting a very Arthur Jensen vibe from you Jack.

      "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?! Do you think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and You Will Atone!"

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    7. BM, You take yourself way too serious if you think I’m posting on someone else’s behalf. When you asked why the last line of the article was removed, I didn’t realize it was a purely rhetorical question. My bad.

      The idea that anti-nationalist libertarians are communists is utter nonsense; the equivalent of a square circle. But believe what you want.

      "Of course, he would condemn these – as do I. The choice isn’t either / or (either open borders or body cavity searches at every highway rest area), as I have written too many times before to count."

      Wow that’s radical and so merciful ;-) The libertarian Rothbard would have wanted it abolished.
      http://www.lpedia.org/1982_National_Platform#18._IMMIGRATION
      I’ve seen possibly all of your articles dealing with immigration in recent months and never a condemnation of anything the government is doing to undocumented immigrants or the building of a border wall.

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    8. Jack,

      It stands to reason that if migrants have a positive right to move to the US over the objections of the native people, then they also have the right to violently impose themselves if they are turned away.

      Do you agree with that?

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    9. Matt,
      1. By “native people” you presumably mean US born. Except for the 2 million or so Native Americans, they’re all immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
      2. The US born have varying views on what immigration law for the US should be. There’s no “objections of the native people”. Also, US born far from own all US land.
      3. There’s no imposing supported in the article; to the contrary, it's the border nationalists doing that via the state. The article in in the 2nd sentence says: “…come and go as you please to anywhere [that’s open to you or anywhere you’re invited to go].

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    10. Jack, it isn't that hard. Do migrants have a positive right to migrate wherever they choose or not? If they are stopped at a border, is that right being violated? If their right is being violated, they have the right use violence to prevent their rights being violated. Right?

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    11. "Jack, it isn't that hard."
      Indeed, yet you made yourself spokesperson for 319 million American immigrants in your question.

      A positive right is a right that obligates others to do something; it’s not people ignoring or evading state laws and impediments, i.e. a state border. The party using violence here is the state.

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  3. i must hear why he left the last sentence out! Great catch. Your shives are so sharp here. ..the cultural hegemony was approaching complete. The culture is changing now. Amen

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  4. Still nothing on the poor local saps that get stuck with the bills for all of this free immigration. I looked through the article and there was no mention of the welfare state nor was there any mention of who gets the bill for all of this immigration to come into the country and complete for your resources.

    I would like to know from FEE and C4SS what explicit bills I have to pay to fund these free immigrants. They mention trampling on rights but they don't mention that those already in country get stuck paying the bills.

    If people want a welfare state then there can be no free immigration.

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  5. I don't know if you keep up with L. Neil Smith's "Libertarian Enterprise", but he has now changed his long-held stance on open borders in the April 9 issue. Maybe there's hope for Hornberger yet.

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  6. Shorter Hornberger: "Immigration is free."

    Shorter bionic mosquito: "Immigration is anything but free."

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  7. Always be suspicious of people who are advocating for the system's policies.

    The difference between myself and Hornberger is that I don't like ANYTHING that is done by D.C. Hornberger says he doesn't like the wars but apparently he has no problem with equality at the point of a gun.

    It would be possible for me to believe he is sincere if he attacked cultural marxism, but he won't, and I have long written him off as an enemy operative of some kind (I don't care what his personal motives are).

    The reason he wont is that he is not motivated by following principles through to their logical conclusion. He is starting with the conclusion. His ideology would not exist without the current system, because it is incoherent. BM has demonstrated this from the libertarian perspective. He runs into contradictions at every turn (open borders minarchism LMAO).

    The elephant in the room is that immigration is simply the race question. We could debate all day a theoretical world where immigration was not a race question but a purely economic/legal question.

    The jewish elites and their gentile collaborators are using the global south to wage a war of racial extermination against European peoples the world over. Hornberger's position is either 1. Race doesn't exist (no one actually believes this, they just pretend to) or 2. The white race should be displaced and eventually exterminated.

    Whenever I asked him about the racial implications of his views he ignored it. He does not want to talk about it. However, someone like Johnson is more than happy to talk about it. That is what he means when he says "burn all nations to the ground." He is actually using nation in the correct sense.

    So when FEE removes this sentence, what they are telegraphing is that they understand the implications but don't want to admit them.

    Liberalism is a weak ideology that is easily subjected to entryism by communist swine. This is what happened to the libertarian movement. SAD!

    Simple question: would Hornberger have been considered a communist in 1950s America?

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    1. UC

      Many decades ago, when I was merely a pup with a brain full of ideas yet void of implications, I was talking with my father and explaining libertarianism to him

      He sat patiently, listening while this young pup was blabbering on. Finally, he asked one question:

      "What? Are you a communist?"

      It made no sense to me at all then - how on earth could the old man make such a connection. Of course, the more I have learned about the common history and the more I have seen of the fervor of left-libertarians, the more I have concluded that on this - like on most things - my dad was a pretty bright guy!

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