Posts
I have had a continuing dialogue in the comments section of
my post Liberté
sans Fraternité? The conversation
begins here: The NAPster May 6, 2017 at
5:03 AM. I have decided to continue
the conversation via this new post.
------------------------------
BM: You continue to avoid the fact that I own the
state-controlled property. Why?
NAP: If one is to take a deontological as opposed to a
consequentialist position, shouldn't a libertarian just concern himself with
advocating for policies that move us towards greater respect for private
property rights?
BM: Who says my position is not deontological? I did
advocate for such policies that move us toward a greater respect for private
property rights and a significantly lesser role for the state, as you note
later in your comment. Keeping in mind
that we are dealing with a subject that has both libertarian and unlibertarian
arguments on both sides, what makes your policy position more libertarian than mine?
My prescriptions come with almost none of the negative
consequences that yours do. You might
find this irrelevant; many of your fellow travelers in the western world do
not. And then there goes your
libertarian idea, as your fellow travelers call for ever-greater state
solutions – which, we see, consequently, that they in fact are.
NAP: If so, how can we reconcile that with worrying about
what might happen if we reject the state's legitimacy in every sphere,
including border control?
BM: What might
happen regarding border control? You can
write these words as a comment to my 2500 word post that started this
conversation? Bold, I say. If France isn’t enough of an example, what of
Germany? Merkel gave open-borders
advocates their wet-dream experiment; how is that working out for everyone’s
freedom in Germany?
Merkel said: “Everyone is welcome. We will not stop you or even check you at the
border.” It doesn’t get more open
borders than that. In the middle of Merkel’s
grand experiment in Germany with immigrants and refugees streaming in by the
hundreds of thousands, two summers ago as I recall, I regularly challenged
open-borders advocates to use the opportunity as a case study for their dream
put into action. None took me up on it. But I knew they wouldn’t, because they couldn’t.
Putting my libertarian and private-property respecting prescriptions
into practice comes with virtually none of the risks that putting yours into
practice does; so why press for yours? Theories
that don’t take account of reality are useless theories. So why not start with mine?
Your theory aligns perfectly with the desires of George
Soros, along with other elite who want to destroy western culture. Your theory aligns perfectly with Gramsci’s
theory of how the communists will take over the west – by destroying the
culture. Why would communists and Soros
want to destroy the culture? Why do many
libertarians tacitly or actively agree with this notion?
Doesn’t this give you even a moment’s pause?
Certainly, by the most miraculous and stunning case of good
fortune, Soros and Gramsci might unknowingly be libertarians on this issue –
maybe open borders libertarians are smarter than these two guys. But is it more likely that they are just
smarter than you and that they understand the ramifications of these policies
better than you do?
I say yes.
NAP: If one is to argue from a consequentialist position,
aren't you making some very broad generalizations when you talk about
"common culture"?
BM: The “broad generalizations” are there for us to witness
in real time, playing out in many countries of Europe. Shall we ignore these and just deontologically
chant “NAP, NAP, NAP”?
NAP: It sounds a lot like the objectionable "common
good" or "public interest" that statists are so fond of using to
justify state action in other areas.
BM: please keep in mind – I am not advocating state action;
I have advocated for private property respecting actions. With that said: talk about a broad
generalization; who is the one making a broad generalization?
I have yet to find another meaningful sphere of government
action where such is the case – although I have offered that I wouldn’t want
someone to pull the plug on the FAA while I am in an airplane in a major
thunderstorm over the Atlanta airport (perhaps the busiest in the country), suddenly
flying blind with zero visibility, with about 100 other planes in the vicinity
all now flying blind and with zero visibility.
I would strongly prefer that the plug gets pulled after I land. You can have your deontology on this one, I
will keep my consequentialist. Enjoy the
flight.
NAP: What if a household of culture A wants to bring in
others from that culture (or from culture X), and a household of culture B
wants to bring in others from that culture (or from culture Y)?
BM: Have I written something contrary to this, something
that would disallow this? Ever? You are repeating my words and then using
these to attack my position?
But I ask you – and it has been asked by others at this site
with no open borders advocate offering a coherent response: what if George
Soros pays to have a million Somalians with no English skills, no driving
skills, no skills at all associated with western civilization and no desire to learn or adapt to any of these
skills and norms, moved into your county of 500,000 people?
Not incompatible with the NAP – all privately done. But, of course, you are impotent to stop this
– because you are deontological.
Do you think this would increase your liberty?
NAP: In addition to being an illegitimate entity, the state
is a very blunt instrument, imposing a one-size-fits-all policy.
BM: Do you have a point, besides stating the obvious? I already have written specifically to you in
this dialogue, and at least a dozen times before: I do not advocate for the
state having a role in border control.
But the only choices in this discussion are not limited to one or the
other (I have already offered a private-property respecting alternative to you –
why do you ignore this?).
I do not limit myself to choosing between one of two
intellectually immature (yes, even if one sticks to a strict application of the
NAP) positions. It is a Hegelian tactic,
favored usually by those who want to grow the state. I will not be drawn into this trap.
NAP: The citizen/non-citizen distinction is purely a fiction
of the state, so why should a libertarian buy into that concept?
BM: One cannot derive “state” from the NAP; yet open borders
advocates naively believe the NAP will somehow offer an intellectually pure (and
only one intellectually pure) answer
to the issue of traversing state
borders.
Given that the state cannot be derived from the NAP, I try
to make my point via an analogy – again, maybe a dozen times: being a member of
a homeowners association comes with privileges not available to a guest
visiting the property; being a member of a golf club offers privileges not
available to a visitor.
In an anarcho-libertarian world, would you also argue with
these? Why do you blame me for the fact
that the NAP – from which it is impossible to derive a state – does not have perfectly
consistent answers when it comes to state borders and the privileges available
to people who legitimately live within these borders as opposed to those
available to visitors?
NAP: Many of your wish-list items are pro-private property
rights, but then you leap to "common culture."
BM: Another libertarian who believes his theory of governing
human relationships need not concern itself with human nature.
Read my post again. Tell
me how France’s open borders policy is working out for the freedom of the
average Frenchman. Tell me what benefit
to the average Frenchman comes with the destruction of his “common culture.”
Finally, a new one for you to ponder – deontologically
speaking and from a perfectly pure private property rights perspective: one has
a right to exit; one does not have a right to enter. Inarguably true.
How do you square this deontology with open borders? Please reflect in your response a recognition
of the following: a) one cannot derive a state from the NAP (therefore no one
has a corner on the deontologically pure answer), and b) I own the state-controlled
property.
"NAP: The citizen/non-citizen distinction is purely a fiction of the state, so why should a libertarian buy into that concept?"
ReplyDeleteCitizenship is a modernization of separating tribe members from non-tribe members. Creation of tribes is a purely organic process, a product of race/ethnicity, language, common culture, beliefs and worldview.
It is the state that has undermined the tribe in taking over the admission of new tribe members through the citizenship concept. By admitting new tribe members (citizens) to all and sundry, the concept of citizenship has been debased. Also note that even though the state admits new citizens from strange and foreign lands, the new citizens are rarely or never thought of as co-ethnic tribe mates. Usually they are thought of as invaders. Sometimes they also consider themselves invaders, too. When foreigners are considered tribe members it is almost always a function of their ethno-cultural similarity and affinity with the receiving people.
If you want the migrants, you should pay for them. Why? Because you are able to advocate from a position of moral hazard. Having to pay for them would make you think through your position (and lets face it, reverse it).
Your position of open borders directly causes NAP violations towards me. My position of controlled borders results in no NAP violations towards you. Which position is the just position?
Matt
DeleteThank you for making the point - and I wish I recalled this in my reply, but it is here now.
"Citizenship" is nothing more than the state's co-option of tribe; tribe being a naturally formed governance unit.
Therefore, the "fiction" is not of citizenship but of ignoring the reality that the state has co-opted voluntary structures (of which citizenship is just one of many) for its own purposes.
I endorse this post.
DeleteIf you want the structure of a true democratic state, Neil Smith's Covenant of Mutual Consent would be a better foundation than NAP, IMO.
ReplyDeleteI find this here:
Deletehttp://www.lneilsmith.org/new-cov.html
For the most part, it strikes me as the NAP, just converted to a contract.
Am I missing something?
Far as I can see that Covenant is derived from the NAP indeed.
DeleteThe covenant allows for aggression as long as it is mutually acceptable to all parties involved. Mutuality is the key rather than majoritarianism. The Constitution is routinely considered a contract, but there are no living signatories, so there are no living enforcers with the lawful authority and duty to do so.
ReplyDeleteAs I am wont to do, having been one of the first to sign the covenant, I misremembered unanimous as mutual...
ReplyDeleteNeil would forgive me before having me shot:-)
Welp. There is a lot here.
ReplyDeleteLet's take this bit right from the start of the exchange:
"...advocating for policies that move us towards greater respect for private property rights?"
I can't tell you how many times I have seen this. It is probably the most common libertarian refrain on the question, "what is to be done?"
To say this is an incomplete answer is an understatement. It is a non-answer.
What has libertarian advocacy ever produced?
Who are you advocating to?
Have you learned nothing from Ron Paul?
Do you even demographics?
"what might happen if we reject the state's legitimacy in every sphere"
Nice rhetoric guy. Are you ready to shoot federal agents?
This isn't serious politics. This is much more like a substitute religion than an actual political idea.
Your position is basically: once everyone has the right opinions I'll get what I want.
This is a dead end in more ways than one.
Any conservative would be unhappy trying to be a libertarian:-)
DeleteI am not actually a conservative. Conservatism is a failed ideology (if you can even call it that).
DeleteI chose the name when I was trolling the National Review comments section and chose to use it on here so that I wouldn't have to keep explaining to people that I am not a libertarian.
If you aren't a conservative or a libertarian, you only have two corners of the Diamond Chart to chose from, and they are liberal and totalitarian, so which is it?
DeleteThe entire left-right political spectrum is socialistic, from the communists on the left end to the fascists on the right end. Until you get off the one-dimensional left-right paradigm, you can't get away from being a socialist. You can find out what you really are at theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php
I have 14 words for you.
DeleteWe must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.
Where does that go on the diamond chart? The quiz didn't ask me.
I am whatever I need to be to see those 14 words come to fruition.
Call me whatever you like, but it is you who is stuck in a paradigm friendo, not me.
Yes, UC does not fit on the 3X5 card of allowable OR unallowable opinion.
DeleteAnd while I do not agree with UC entirely on all matters, I will say that I am better off for the exchange of opinion.
UC appears to be mathematically challenged and I hope that she is not a math teacher. Political position isn't about race, and neither am I. Racism has killed as many people as religion while advancing nothing but division. I'm always about exchange, but division doesn't produce much of that.
DeleteUC: Exactly which people is it that you feel you own?
Deletevonu,
DeleteYou understand little. I am not a woman but funny enough the woman I am using for my current avatar, Savitri Devi, was in fact a PhD in mathematics, as well as devotee of Adolf Hitler. Hitler had a political position and that position was absolutely about race.
I take it that your anti-"racist" position is similar to that of Richard von Coudenhove Kalergi- a progenitor of the European Union.
"The man of the future will be of mixed race. The races and classes of today will gradually disappear due to the elimination of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-negroid race of the future, similar in appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples and the diversity of individuals."
-Practical Idealism, 1925.
Ask yourself whether it is easier for a world government to rule over a multitude of races and ethnic groups or if maybe a single brown slave race with no past or culture of its own might be easier ruled.
As for you Sonja,
I respect your fanaticism but your use of language doesn't allow for necessary distinctions. There is, for instance, a difference between paternalism and slavery. Having positive obligations to your people is not slavery. Making sure children don't do stupid things is not slavery.
Sonja: Exactly who besides yourself do you feel an obligation to?
I understand that avatar transvestites don't have much of a claim on discriminatory understanding. The simple fact that I am a declared constitutionalist should explain that I am in favor of maintaining the cultural purity of this republic, but it is very difficult to recover what our predecessors gave away. Once the epidermis has been removed, even a practical idealist like yourself couldn't identify the race. Those who claim to be Christians and tolerate inter-racial breeding are hypocrites. Since I understand that we are all spiritual beings having human experiences, and consciousness is consciousness regardless of the biological housing, if one is going to be culturally and/or racially bigoted, they should expect that due a humanistic criminal.
DeleteVonu,
DeleteYou are right. Race has nothing to do with the establishment of nations, a fact proven by Jewish sociologists. It was only racism that caused tribes to feel more affinity with racially and ethnically related groups that with alien out groups.
Thank goodness that we have people like you that understand that the solution to racial strife is having the government import as many foreign and mutually hostile people into the West as possible. I would rather he dead that be racist. I hear plenty of women prefer rapists to racists, too.
Israel of course is our greatest ally, and must remain a Jewish state. Anyone supporting open borders for Israel is a racist bigot.
vonu,
DeleteRace is real and it matters.
Also, the constitution was written by white supremacists.
Another comment from NAPster not published on this article:
ReplyDelete[Couldn't one aspect of being an "open borders" libertarian simply be that you deny the legitimacy of any state action when it comes to admitting individuals to, or prohibiting them from entering, state-controlled property? That this is a principled objection to state action per se, even though the immediate consequences -- free movement into state-controlled property -- may not be favorable?]
[At least some of those who are not "open borders" libertarians are, at a minimum, advocating for the state to act in accordance with their preferred policy. However, proposing that the state have such a role, and accepting that it will need to tax (and possibly use eminent domain) to carry out that role, could also be described as un-libertarian."]
>That this is a principled objection to state action per se
Look guy. This is the kind of stupidity only smart people are capable of.
You oppose D.C right? Well so do I. It is the world enemy. However, you fail to understand because you look at these things in an abstract theoretical sense.
The state does not just attack us through action but through inaction. The state (and its owners) wants to keep the borders open and you support this. It is infact YOU who are supporting the State and its destructive policies.
If you want to take power away from the state, supporting the importation of the third world is about as counter productive as it gets.
This is not hard to grasp. Read less Walter Block.
> If you want to take power away
Delete> from the state, supporting the
> importation of the third world
> is about as counter productive
> as it gets.
Then why do you support it?
I am assuming you are asking why I support the State. Correct?
DeleteWell I don't. However, unlike you I treat the state as an array of existing institutions and not an ideological construct that is accepted or rejected wholesale.
Theoretical support of a future state of some kind does not equal any endorsement of the present state.
One can both recognize and treat the state as an array of existing institutions as well as an ideological construct that is accepted or rejected wholesale.
DeleteIn my view, the failure of white men to be able to do so has played a prominent role in the decline of western civilization, which, as we agree, was almost entirely conceived, developed, expressed, and improved upon by dead white men, with most of the balance owing to some living white men (I will admit that we probably part company in that I think that you are too niggardly in your estimation of the decidedly smaller contributions that white women have made and the even teenier-tiny contributions some men of color have made).
Once again, I want to remind you that there are some libertarians, like moi, who do not discount the importance of culture and race in arguing for a NAP society.
Do you think that we are all ignorant of the reality that the vast majority of women and an even greater majority of coloreds are not particularly suited for an NAP society?
Nevertheless, the state, and each and every one of its institutions, are arrayed against us. You name the particular institution, and I will be able to illustrate how it operates to the detriment of our culture.
The sooner the white man wakes up and recognizes this, the better.
Liberty Mike
The white man will have to deal with becoming the minority first.
Delete"The white man will have to deal with becoming the minority first"
DeleteWell, that's the system plan (the plan that you support).
It's the reason that you support open borders libertarianism. Your eye is on the prize. Ideology is just a tool for you to convince the dumb goyim.
I don't support open borders of any kind, but building a fence or a wall when it would be much easier and cost effective to bring our own troops home to patrol that border instead of deploying them where they don't belong and aren't welcome strikes me as the height of idiocy.
Delete"I don't support open borders of any kind, but building a fence or a wall when it would be much easier and cost effective to bring our own troops home to patrol that border instead of deploying them where they don't belong and aren't welcome strikes me as the height of idiocy."
DeleteLet me get this straight. Because certain people (that are variously infiltrators or traitors) in the government lead us to wars that I oppose, we aren't permitted to protect our people from foreign invasion (also sponsored by the same people waging the wars overseas)?
How does that make sense? And why should white people become a minority in their own countries? I would rather resist. If "libertarians" are on the other side then they will find out the meaning of a tribe's oldest and most organic law, the law against betraying the tribe.
Matt, I didn't read his comment this way at all; perhaps vonu will clarify.
DeleteI can't clarify what I can't understand the misunderstanding of.
DeleteAmerica hasn't entered a lawful, constitutional, declared foreign military action since WW2. The whole purpose of everything since has been conquest and production of profit by and for the military-intelligence complex. The military's only legitimate reason for existing is the physical protection of the American homeland. They have abdicated from that responsibility, to serve the purposes of our domestic enemies. All it would take is the integrity and resolve of Michael New and the military would be left with nothing but mercenaries in uniform.
I can answer some of your questions BM:
ReplyDeleteIt is not that anyone is avoiding the "fact" that you own state controlled property, it is simply that we recognize the assertion as nonsense. You do not own anything, even your own self.
> Who says my position is not deontological?
I don't know about such problems. Perhaps you should check with your oral hygienist or listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FFtht9k87k
> I have already offered a private-property
> respecting alternative to you – why do
> you ignore this?
Because you have no property of course.
> ...would you also argue with these?
Yes and yes, because with a "homeowners association" and with a "golf club" there is no legitimate property ownership. (Though I'd have to set aside the "libertarian world" straw-man because I am not a libertarian and I don't believe in such nonsense.)
> Tell me how France’s open borders policy
> is working out for the freedom of the
> average Frenchman.
It's a vacuous topic, because the average Frenchman has no freedom. He is owned by others.
> Tell me what benefit to the average
> Frenchman comes with the destruction
> of his “common culture.”
It is irrelevant because the average Frenchman does not have a "common culture" to destroy. He is completely dispossessed. He is, as you are, largely responsible for the situation in which he finds himself. And he is, as you are, totally dedicated to continuing the same course of (in)action.
> If France isn’t enough of an example,
> what of Germany?
Indeed, what have you done to help any German? What of Americans? What are you doing to help a single one of them? (Hint: The answer is nothing, and you will not be able to do anything until you look the situation square in the face and understand your actual situation as opposed to the fanciful notion that you "own" what is controlled by others and have a "culture" that will protect you in some vague sense.) You will be a victim (and your family will be victims) just like the dispossessed French, the dispossessed Germans, and the Indians who didn't think it was a reasonable thing to own property.
> one has a right to exit; one does not
> have a right to enter. Inarguably true.
Inarguably vacuous, again due to the absence of property.
"I can answer some of your questions BM."
DeleteNo, Sonja, you cannot. To suggest that you can implies that you are capable of doing so; you are not. To suggest that you will implies that I asked you; I did not. To suggest that you did implies that I read your comments with even an ounce of intellectual curiosity; I do not.
Whatever definition of property you have - and up until now you have done worse than the betters that you criticize, as at least they have offered theories - I believe this blog is my property. I can prove it by deciding who is and isn't allowed to comment.
Want to test my theory? Unless your next comment answers this question, it - and future comments of yours - will not be posted.
You claim a property right to your response and to your ability to help the BM. Of course people have property.
DeleteThat answers my next question for Sonja, thanks a lot for the censorship, BM.
Delete"there is no legitimate property ownership"
"He is owned by others."
"Inarguably vacuous, again due to the absence of property"
So which is it?
Patrick
DeleteDid I censor her? Or were you being sarcastic?
She has yet to respond to a simple yes / no question. I don't see what is so difficult about that.
In any case, Sonja has popped up here every month or two for at least a year or two. I still can't understand a word she says.
Sonja, I would like to testify that BM is doing us all a great service by having this forum.
DeleteI used to drink the kool-aid straight from the faucet. Forums like his have helped to open my sight and mind much more than most Americans will ever have a chance to know.
For instance I am truly blessed to read a post, and read comments such as yours. Although I dont agree with you generally, I learn a lot from your response, things I never thought of and/or cannot reconcile intellectually why I disagree, but I do.
I admire your fanaticism as well, but your nihilism is seething. There isn't very much that we slaves can do, but we CAN read and write, and BM's contribution however small means the world to me, and our only hope is that more people like yourself and BM talk it out.
BM
DeleteThank you for citing Hegelian dialectics.
I had never delved into this subject and now that I am I feel freed of a Master chain of bondage, the lynchpin of all my incorrect (yet "modern") reasoning. Thank you sir!
I have given more thought this deontology. First, I searched for its definition. Then, I ruminated on it through my Christian stomach ... so to speak.
ReplyDeleteThe New Testament does teach that we will also be judged according to the light given to each. Anyone living perfectly, even by their own standards? Don't think so although I am sure many think so. By their own failings they will be judged and with no one but themselves for justification.
" If France isn’t enough of an example, what of Germany? Merkel gave open-borders advocates their wet-dream experiment; how is that working out for everyone’s freedom in Germany?
ReplyDeleteAnonproof
Merkel said: “Everyone is welcome. We will not stop you or even check you at the border.” It doesn’t get more open borders than that. In the middle of Merkel’s grand experiment in Germany with immigrants and refugees streaming in by the hundreds of thousands, two summers ago as I recall, I regularly challenged open-borders advocates to use the opportunity as a case study for their dream put into action. None took me up on it. But I knew they wouldn’t, because they couldn’t."
https://nico.liberty.me/about-that-german-open-border-policy/
Anonproof
ReplyDelete"There seems to be a theme in certain political circles that Germany is almost on a verge of destruction and civil war, thanks to the crazy policy of open borders. And for some strange reason, these circles overlap with the libertarian movement. To many, it proves that open borders just do not work. In other words, Germany would have done better if it had had stricter government regulations of people.
This is a very strange perception. The basic facts seem to be false and it is a wrong analysis of what the problem is. Let me assure you that Germany at no point in this century had anything even remotely resembling an open borders policy. That is to say, at no point was it legal to enter and live in Germany without the government regulating the whole process."
https://nico.liberty.me/about-that-german-open-border-policy/
AnonymousMay 10, 2017 at 1:40 PM
DeleteAll that the author is demonstrating is the futility of open borders in a world with borders; all he is demonstrating is that even a minor change in the law results in conflict for many.
Imagine a major change in the law in a world that is not governed in a strict, private property regime.
The author of that post is not the only person who has been to Germany or knows people in Germany.
DeleteIf it is a minor change in the law it is not what you describe in your post.. not everyone is welcome, not wet-dream of open borders, nothing like open borders, not a perfect case to study open borders. As the author of the article write, in Germany the government is stil regulating everything. So my impression is that you force your interpretation to prove your conclusion, and that the conclusion was there before you look at the example. From what I know, Germany doesen't have open border or something similar to it, and isn't in the critical condition you suggest. Anonproof
DeleteIf a deontological argument is based on rules, isn't securing the rules the first goal? Also, if the rules can be changed, have they been?
ReplyDelete