Their ideological passion is blinding them to a rather obvious fact: that libertarianism is a peculiarly American doctrine, with very little appeal to the huddled masses of the third world.
There is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders. Not only is there no contradiction between the two things, in fact, it may be that the second a precondition for the first.
I think the author is somewhat misinformed. Libertarian ideas are more widespread than he imagines. There are international groups and many groups around the world who promote libertarian ideas. And there are men like Hernando De Soto who are promoting libertarian concepts like property rights for the benefit of the poor in second and third world countries.
And while the author of the article may have found a study that claims only 13% of Americans "lean libertarian", there are many more who agree to varying degrees with libertarian ideas. For example, the backlash against the Kelo v. New London decision. No, there is no powerful libertarian movement sweeping the world, but the author is mistaken to discount libertarians as having little influence in American and the world.[/color]
Quote from: John Derbyshire
There is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders. Not only is there no contradiction between the two things, in fact, it may be that the second a precondition for the first.
There is nothing true about that quote. Mr. Derbyshire is entirely incorrect.
I am sure there are a few eskimos in the Sahara, too. I'm equally sure they'd be the exception, not the rule.
Since when it the concept of private property uniquely libertarian?
I think the notion precedes libertarianism by quite a few years.
The fact that libertarianism overlaps and shares assumptions with other political philosophies is hardly evidence of it's influence.
Quote from: John DerbyshireThere is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders. Not only is there no contradiction between the two things, in fact, it may be that the second a precondition for the first.There is nothing true about that quote. Mr. Derbyshire is entirely incorrect.
I'd say that so far the evidence is on Mr. Derbyshire's side,
I'd say that so far the evidence is on Mr. Derbyshire's side, and a substantial part of the world is starting to find that out the hard way. Perhaps you'd like to explain the popularity of this fellow (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1971462.stm) in the Netherlands.
If you can point to any contrary examples (and not just libertarian theories about what should happen, curiously uninformed by any of the countless examples of what actually does happen), I'd sure like to see them.
Required reading - The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail (http://www.amazon.com/Camp-Saints-Jean-Raspail/dp/1881780074/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-4039970-3163230?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180231672&sr=1-2)
I did not say that it was. What I said was there are many people who agree to varying degrees with libertarian ideas. Libertarian ideas are more wide spread than I think you realize. And I will say their influence is also widespread. A contributor to the elimination of the military draft in the U.S. was Milton Friedman, a libertarian if a moderate one. Also, apparently not so much any more, but as recently as 2000, Republicans campaigned on libertarian leaning ideas of small government and non-intervention. And libertarianism is still influential enough that some liberals now see themselves as libertarian leaning, hence the whole "liberaltarian" conversation that prompted the article you posted. You can dismiss libertarianism if you like, but you're only ignoring the reality of the situation.
Interestingly, the difference of views has nothing to do with the economics of immigration, on which I think we all agree. Expanded immigration is likely to exert downward pressure on workers' wages in the U.S. Where we disagree is on whether the gains to the rest of the world make this still a worthwhile effort (in the context, of course, of efforts to cushion the adverse effects on U.S.). As Alex Tabarrok points out in a recent post, the differences have to do with what we think is the relevant moral community for making public policy decisions. George thinks the purely national perspective is the right one, and he figures the aggregate gains for the U.S. are small relative to the distributional costs, which makes this bad policy. For my part, I believe cosmopolitan considerations should enter our calculus when the gains abroad (or to foreign nationals) are sufficiently large, which they would be with temporary labor flows. (So I am not a strict nationalist on these matters, to revert to Tabarrok's terminology.) (http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/05/more_on_immigra.html)
If you're interested in seeing libertarians from other countries, the International Society for Individual Liberty will be holding its World Freedom Summit in Williamsburg, Virginia this year, August 11-15. Among the speakers will be Elbegdorj Tsakhia, former Prime Minister of Mongolia; Jacques de Guenin, a former director of Peugeot-Citroën and former mayor of Saint-Loubouer in Les Landes region of France; and Franklin Cudjoe, the Director of The Center for Humane Education (IMANI) – a libertarian thinktank in Accra, Ghana. And just in case you're saying "yeah, but they're meeting in America," this years conference will be the first one in several years, as best I can tell, to be held in America. Past summits have been held in places like Prague, Puerto Vallarta and New Zealand. [/color]
Quote from: John DerbyshireThere is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders. Not only is there no contradiction between the two things, in fact, it may be that the second a precondition for the first.There is nothing true about that quote. Mr. Derbyshire is entirely incorrect.
I'd say that so far the evidence is on Mr. Derbyshire's side,
What evidence?
I'd say that so far the evidence is on Mr. Derbyshire's side, and a substantial part of the world is starting to find that out the hard way. Perhaps you'd like to explain the popularity of this fellow (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1971462.stm) in the Netherlands.
I see nothing in that article at the other end of your link that supports Mr Derbyshire's assertion. Yes, I see that xenophobic anti-immigration is popular in many places. That hardly proves that there "is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders." Perhaps you'd like to try again?
If you can point to any contrary examples (and not just libertarian theories about what should happen, curiously uninformed by any of the countless examples of what actually does happen), I'd sure like to see them.Contrary examples of what? Of xenophobic anti-immigration?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I'll swing in the general direction I think you're pitching. A contrary example might be the 2006 elections here in the U.S. One of the arguments being made for why so many conservative Republicans lost is that many of them were anti-immigration, and there was a serious backlash against that stance. I think the evidence supports that argument. If you're not familiar with it, this link (http://www.reason.com/news/show/118323.html) will take you to an article that sums up the situation nicely.[/color]
Required reading - The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail (http://www.amazon.com/Camp-Saints-Jean-Raspail/dp/1881780074/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-4039970-3163230?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180231672&sr=1-2)
You're advocating as required reading a book that, as near as I can discover, is some sort of novel about the peril of the end of the white race as a result if the overwhelming tide of non-white people from third-world countries. So, do you think this is about race? About protecting white people from being overrun or eliminated? Frankly, I don't care about what color someone else's skin might be. And I am not all that concerned about the demise of Western culture because I doubt it will die. It will more likely evolve, just as it has done for the past several hundred (or even several thousand) years. The Western culture of Shakespeare's time would seem nearly foreign to most Westerners today. Yet Western culture did not die. It changed, as have the cultures in China and Russia and Mexico, et cetera. I personally do not subscribe to the fear of cultural change that seems to motivate so many people to want to close our borders and hinder otherwise harmless immigration. Yes, I want to see change for the better and not for the worse, but that isn't a reason to trample on the lives of others.
And as best as I can figure out, there is no such thing as maximum liberty in a nation with closed borders. I have yet to see one proposal for closing the borders that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation. Closing the borders means laws about who can and cannot be hired for a job, laws requiring national identification papers/cards/chips, taxes to pay for constructing and maintaining and monitoring and guarding a physical barrier at the border—and that is just the beginning. Such things are entirely and obviously contrary to maximum liberty. And so far you have not produced a single iota of evidence or argumentation that indicates otherwise. So I say with complete assurance that you and Mr. Derbyshire are incorrect.[/color]
Interesting you should bring up Milton Friedman in a thread defending open immigration.
He was agin it. As has been every other libertarian economist of note. I doubt you can name me a single counter-example.
In other words, this "libertarian" open immigration idea from the likes of Reason and the Cato Institute amounts to a international redistribution program at the expense of Americans who can afford it the least.
Libertarians, eh? Being charitable at somebody else's expense?
You can spare me the lecture on libertarianism.
I considered myself a libertarian for over 15 years, and have been active in a number of libertarian organizations I'm sure you've heard of. But that's when libertarians defined personal liberty as the right to fuck up your own life. Now that they apparently believe personal liberty includes the right to fuck up the country for everyone else, I'm off the bus!
Xenophobic? Woohoo! Wave your hankie when you say that!
If you're implying that liking my country's language, customs, culture and political institutions just as they are, and don't see how a massive influx of third world poor will provide an improvement makes me some kind of a [fac,rac,national,class,a-zA-Z,]*ist, then it will just have to. I do, and I'm not apologizing for it.
And Weigel, as is his wont, was being disingenuous. What he fails to mention was that in most of those races, the Democrat also supported stricter immigration controls (although possibly not as strict as the competing Republican). In case you missed it, the decisive issue in the last election was the Iraq war, not immigration.
If you want to know how people feel about immigration apart from all other issues, I can recommend a few polls. We'll start with this one:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/56_support_enforcement_only_immigration_approach
What you manage to ignore is that "change" and "displace" are two different things. When Europeans migrated to the Western Hemisphere, they didn't "change" Native American culture, they displaced it. I note you are posting in English, not Iroquois.
As per the "trampling", I submit any trampling being done is being done by the illegal immigrants. It's not massive numbers of Americans that are imposing themselves on their countries in contravention to their laws.
As per Camp of the Saints - you're missing the subtler point of the book. It's not so much about the destruction of the white race as it is about the paralysis of a culture so obsessed and preoccupied of things like liberty, equality, brotherhood and "fairness" that it couldn't act even to circumvent a migration which would surely overwhelm and destroy it, even when it could easily have done so.
And as best as I can figure out, there is no such thing as maximum liberty in a nation with closed borders. I have yet to see one proposal for closing the borders that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation. Closing the borders means laws about who can and cannot be hired for a job, laws requiring national identification papers/cards/chips, taxes to pay for constructing and maintaining and monitoring and guarding a physical barrier at the border—and that is just the beginning. Such things are entirely and obviously contrary to maximum liberty. And so far you have not produced a single iota of evidence or argumentation that indicates otherwise. So I say with complete assurance that you and Mr. Derbyshire are incorrect.
"Maximum liberty" isn't possible without closed borders. What you're essentially advocating by "open" borders is the elimination of borders. One World! (Again, this sounds familiar.) Let's give it a spin, shall we?
What you're essentially advocating by "open" borders is the elimination of borders. One World! (Again, this sounds familiar.)
As per your contention that immigration laws are unenforceable without significant invasions of privacy and infringing on the liberties of citizens - horseshit!. Your blurring the distinction between a law and it's enforcement strategy. Somehow we manage to enforce our murder laws without the cops going door-to-door every day and looking under everyone's bed for bodies. The problem is that the penalty for knowingly employing an illegal alien is small enough that many employers will accept the risk as a cost of doing business.
Make it a felony with a prison term attached, and few employers will be willing to employ illegal aliens even if the chances of getting caught are small.
No ID cards, no chips, no papers required, other than the standard background check most employers already give perspective employees.
No more jobs available, no more illegal immigration. Simple as that.
The problem with talking about libertarian economists regarding immigration is that they view the matter from a private property perspective. And many of those notable libertarian economists also advocate(d) a stateless society, which would make all immigration an issue of private property. But immigration from one country to another is not now a private property issue any more then traveling from one state to another within the U.S. is a private property issue. So if you support the ideas of libertarian economists, are you also in favor of anarcho-capitalism, that is to say, a stateless society where private property is a paramount right? If not, then it seems disingenuous of you to claim those libertarian economists in support of your anti-immigration stance.
IV. THE PURE ANARCHO-CAPITALIST MODEL
I raise the pure anarcho-capitalist model in this paper, not so much
to advocate the model per se as to propose it as a guide for settling vexed
current disputes about nationality. The pure model, simply, is that no
land areas, no square footage in the world, shall remain "public"; every
square foot of land area, be they streets, squares, or neighborhoods, is
privatized. Total privatization would help solve nationality problems, often
in surprising ways, and I suggest that existing states, or classical liberal
states, try to approach such a system even while some land areas remain
in the governmental sphere.
....
However, on rethinking immigration on the basis of the anarcho-
capitalist model, it became clear to me that a totally privatized country
would not have "open borders" at all. If every piece of land in a country
were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean
that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed
to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as
"closed" as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems
clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the
U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the
state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not gen-
uinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.
"If there were no welfare state," he continued, "you could have open immigration, because everybody would be responsible for himself." Was he suggesting that one can't have immigration reform without welfare reform? "No, you can have immigration reform, but you can't have open immigration without largely the elimination of welfare.
Open immigration amounts to allowing people the liberty to exercise their own rights in choosing for themselves with whom to enter into private agreements of exchange. The argument that poor people should be prevented from exercising this right is tantamount to insisting that poor people are, at best, second class citizens. There are reasonable arguments to be made against open immigration, but that poor people will immigrate is not one of them.
At whose expense? How does someone from Mexico working here remove property from you? What right of yours is infringed by someone else agreeing to hire a person from another country? Your argument is nonsensical.
You sound less like a libertarian and more like someone afraid of living with the concequences of allowing people freedom to decide for themselves. In other words, a fair-weather libertarian. You seem to think choosing for oneself is great so long as everyone thinks like you. You oppose allowing people who do not think like you to have the liberty to choose. Which is the worst sort of hypocritical libertarianism. Freedom for yourself and your friends, but not for others. That is closer to authoritarianism than it is to libertarianism.
Xenophobic? Woohoo! Wave your hankie when you say that!
Is that your best reply? Did you take debate lessons from Michael Savage? I asked you for evidence to support your claim, and your reply is "wave your hankie". Wow. You're an intellectual giant.<--sarcasm[/color]
No, I'm saying directly that examples of support for a xenophobic anti-immigration position does not prove that there "is no contradiction between maximum liberty within a nation and maximum vigilance on the nation’s borders." But I'm glad to see you own up to being a bigot. At least there is no confusion about that.
If you're implying that liking my country's language, customs, culture and political institutions just as they are, and don't see how a massive influx of third world poor will provide an improvement makes me some kind of a [fac,rac,national,class,a-zA-Z,]*ist, then it will just have to. I do, and I'm not apologizing for it.
And Weigel, as is his wont, was being disingenuous. What he fails to mention was that in most of those races, the Democrat also supported stricter immigration controls (although possibly not as strict as the competing Republican). In case you missed it, the decisive issue in the last election was the Iraq war, not immigration.
To quote Weigel, "In other words, the hard-liners have a bucket of red herrings." The Iraq war was one issue among many. Pinning everything on one issue is a silly oversimplification. Not everyone in America is a single-issue voter, and even among those there many different issues of priority. The Iraq war was a significant issue, but so, and perhaps more so, was immigration.
If you want to know how people feel about immigration apart from all other issues, I can recommend a few polls. We'll start with this one:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/56_support_enforcement_only_immigration_approach
Okay. Then explain this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/us/25poll.html
Taking a pragmatic view on a divisive issue, a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status and to create a new guest worker program to meet future labor demands, the poll found.
At the same time, Americans have mixed feelings about whether the recent wave of immigration has been beneficial to the country, the survey found, and they are sharply divided over how open the United States should be to future immigrants.
...
The poll showed that Americans are uncertain about the benefits of the most recent wave of immigration, and divided over how many immigrants should come in the future. Fifty-seven percent said recent immigrants had made a contribution to the United States. But 35 percent said that in the long run, the new immigrants would make American society worse, while only 28 percent said they would make it better.
A plurality of 48 percent favored imposing some controls on immigration. But large minorities on either side disagreed, with a quarter of respondents saying the United States should open its borders to all immigrants, and a quarter saying that the borders should be completely closed. These polarized positions may help explain the acrimony of the immigration debate across the nation.
By large margins, people in the poll are aware that the majority of the immigrants who have arrived in recent years are illegal, and 61 percent said that illegal immigration was a very serious problem. A large majority, 70 percent of respondents, said they believed that illegal immigrants weaken the American economy because they use public services but do not pay corresponding taxes.
8. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the issue of immigration?
App Disapp DK/NA
10/3-5/05 CBS 21 53 26
4/6-9/06 CBS 26 53 21
4/28-30/06 CBS 28 56 16
5/4-8/06 26 58 16
5/16-17/06 CBS 38 53 9
6/10-11/06 CBS 33 56 11
5/18-23/07 27 60 13
45. Overall, do you think most other people would say most recent immigrants to the United States contribute to this country, or do most of them cause problems?
Contribute Cause problems Both(vol.) Depends(vol.) DK/NA
5/18-23/07 32 53 3 1 10
46. In the long run, do you think the people who are emigrating to the United States today will make American society better, will make American society worse, or do you think today's immigrants won't affect American society one way or the other?
Better Worse Won’t affect society DK/NA
1/3-5/94 CBS 16 41 32 11
10/23-27/96 CBS 22 40 27 11
5/18-23/07 28 35 29 8
47. Do you think most of the people who have moved to the United States in the last few years are here legally, or are most of them here illegally?
Legally Illegally Half & half (vol.) DK/NA
6/19-23/86 32 49 6 13
6/21-24/93 17 68 5 9
12/7-10/01 29 53 3 16
5/18-23/07 16 75 2 7
As per Camp of the Saints - you're missing the subtler point of the book. It's not so much about the destruction of the white race as it is about the paralysis of a culture so obsessed and preoccupied of things like liberty, equality, brotherhood and "fairness" that it couldn't act even to circumvent a migration which would surely overwhelm and destroy it, even when it could easily have done so.
The paralysis of white culture. Are you next going to suggest I read The Turner Diaries?
And as best as I can figure out, there is no such thing as maximum liberty in a nation with closed borders. I have yet to see one proposal for closing the borders that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation. Closing the borders means laws about who can and cannot be hired for a job, laws requiring national identification papers/cards/chips, taxes to pay for constructing and maintaining and monitoring and guarding a physical barrier at the border—and that is just the beginning. Such things are entirely and obviously contrary to maximum liberty. And so far you have not produced a single iota of evidence or argumentation that indicates otherwise. So I say with complete assurance that you and Mr. Derbyshire are incorrect.
"Maximum liberty" isn't possible without closed borders. What you're essentially advocating by "open" borders is the elimination of borders. One World! (Again, this sounds familiar.) Let's give it a spin, shall we?
You're not addressing what I said. You're just restating your opinion and again leaving it with no support. That faintest of whisper sound you hear is your insubstantial argument collapsing under its own lighter than gossamer weight.
What you're essentially advocating by "open" borders is the elimination of borders. One World! (Again, this sounds familiar.)
Hardly. We have almost completely open immigration within the U.S. And yet, contrary to your assertion, we still have firmly established state borders. So your One World argument is moot.
No actually, I am not blurring anything. Again, you're not addressing what I said. I did not say immigration laws are unenforceable without significant invasions of privacy and infringing on the liberties of citizens. I said, "I have yet to see one proposal for closing the borders that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation." And you help illustrate this with your assertion that "The problem is that the penalty for knowingly employing an illegal alien is small enough that many employers will accept the risk as a cost of doing business." Even you seek to have law made and enforced that infringes on the liberty of legal residents of the nation. What you have tried to dismiss as "horseshit" you have instead shown to be true.
And except for the identification requirements for employment that already exist. Which have resulted in a thriving market for forgeries. But it is interesting that you, who have spent so much time trying to connect the open borders position with liberalism and the like, have come out in favor of the socialist position that the government needs to tell individuals how to run their businesses in order to protect society. How weird is that?
The problem with talking about libertarian economists regarding immigration is that they view the matter from a private property perspective.
That is not at all how libertarian economists have formulated the immigration question. [...] Here is exactly what he said:Quote from: Murray RothbardHowever, on rethinking immigration on the basis of the anarcho-capitalist model, it became clear to me that a totally privatized countrywould not have "open borders" at all. If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as "closed" as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.
Likewise, neither did Friedman express his objections to open immigration as a violation of private property. He objected to it as incompatible with the welfare state. Here is what he said:Quote from: Milton Friedman"If there were no welfare state," he continued, "you could have open immigration, because everybody would be responsible for himself." Was he suggesting that one can't have immigration reform without welfare reform? "No, you can have immigration reform, but you can't have open immigration without largely the elimination of welfare.
In the first place, foreign nationals are not second class citizens, because they are not citizens at all.
Second, all societies, from your bowling team to the United Nations, have a right to define the conditions of membership. There's no such thing as a right to be in a country you are not a citizen of, any more than there's a right to be on property you are not the owner of.
Third, given that minimizing the presence of an underclass is one of the primary objectives of virtually every government on earth, it would seem counter-productive to encourage the importation of one.
If I buy a pair of $300 speakers from a fence for $25, rather than pay the full price at Circuit City, what right of Circuit City's is infringed?
You're ignoring that illegal labor, like my fenced speakers, is a bargain specifically because it's illegal. Legitimate providers of goods and services can't compete on the same terms as those who provide them illegally.
Like the Marxists, you are making the assumption this would be a wonderful world if only it would conform to your preferred political preferences.
Tyranny is the normal case, liberty is the exceptional one.
My concern is maintaining freedom in my own country. Establishing it or maintaining it in other countries is rightfully the concern of the citizens of those countries.
Einstein I may not be, but I at least take the trouble to acquaint myself with the works of those whose views I propose to either represent or critique.
[...]
I gave you links to about a half-dozen news accounts of situations where the liberty and security of the affected populations would be profitably enhanced with a border. You've yet to give me an single example of anyone's liberty being enhanced by the removal of one.
And again, if the assertion that my country and culture have accomplished some admirable things and therefore merit an effort to preserve them makes me a bigot, then I'll gladly plead guilty.
And [Weigel] provided not one iota of evidence in support of his opinion.
Well, let's see what your poll and the article actually says:
[...]
I dunno. Those numbers look pretty consistent with the poll I posted. What was your point?
Would you have been happier if Raspail had used a Klingon invasion of Vulcan to illustrate the dilemma? And would his point be any less salient if he had?
So what else do those who call themselves libertarians do for jollies these days - purge and burn copies of Huckleberry Finn from school libraries?
So you're comparing open borders between the several states with open borders between countries? And you don't see the distinction?
Let me give you a cultural quiz:
Stoning a woman to death who's committed adultery is a practice of some religious sects in:
A.) New Hampshire
B.) California
C.) Afghanistan
D.) Hawaii
E.) Arkansas
How did you do?
If you're going to put it that way, I have yet to see one proposal for prohibiting burglary that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation. But you've yet to establish that the liberty to commit burglaries or aid and abet people who are in the country illegally is a legitimate right.
Identification requirements and background check are not necessarily done at the behest of the government. They're generally done because most employers have an aversion to hiring embezzlers, drug addicts and habitual criminals. To be in this country illegally is obviously a crime. I didn't say the government should mandate identification. The government should increase the penalty for knowingly aiding and abetting someone who has committed the crime of entering the country illegally. How the employer does his due diligence is his affair.
I would like to try a thought experiment.
If all the world were tightly regimented but for Lichtenstein, which was free, should there be a right for all the worlds people yearning for freedom to stack themselves in Lichtenstein?
At some point before the whole world arrived, Lichtenstien would run out of space , or resorces.
Freedom is better than any alternative for each individual , but any social unit will limit individual freedom as much as it must to exist .
{Or more}
Allowing every freedom yearning person of the world to settle in the US produces problems here and there.
I guess I would rather have a resorce shortage than a dearth of freedom loveing people.
But isn't it best to cause neither sort of problem?
I would like to try a thought experiment.
If all the world were tightly regimented but for Lichtenstein, which was free, should there be a right for all the worlds people yearning for freedom to stack themselves in Lichtenstein?
At some point before the whole world arrived, Lichtenstien would run out of space , or resorces.QuoteYou're assuming that such a situation would result in vast numbers of people wanting to live in Lichtenstein. I doubt it would. Some people, yes. Everyone, no.QuoteEven if it is only that number that feel chafed by the halters of their government , it could amount to swamping Litchtenstien quickly and perhaps the US slowly.
Freedom is better than any alternative for each individual , but any social unit will limit individual freedom as much as it must to exist .
{Or more}
I disagree. They will limit individual freedom as much as the people in power feel is needed to maintain control.QuoteYou are not disagreeing , you are restateing the same thing in milder terms , let me restate it again in other terms still, a soicial unit may impose greater than the needed restriction on personal liberty , but it shall not impose less restriction than it needs to cpontinue to exist.
Allowing every freedom yearning person of the world to settle in the US produces problems here and there.
You seem to be assuming that immigration is all about moving from oppression to freedom. I don't think it is. Mexico is not exactly an oppressed nation. What the Mexicans coming here lack usually is not liberty, but money and the opportunity to earn it. And the ones who risk coming here illgally are probably more oppressed by their situation here (having to hide from the law) than they would be in Mexico. In fact, there are American expatriates in Mexico who believe they have more freedom there than in the U.S.QuoteI hereby acnoledge that I was consentrateing on only half of the reasons for leaveing the rest of the world and comeing here , thereby minimiseing the problem , thank you for pointing out that economic reasons are equally compelling and that the problem is twice as bad as I was describeing.
I guess I would rather have a resorce shortage than a dearth of freedom loveing people.
But isn't it best to cause neither sort of problem?
Probably. Which is why I advocate free trade. Focusing on stopping people from crossing the border is like treating the symptom of a disease but not the cause. Treat the cause(s) and the symptoms will go away. Treat just the symptoms, and the situation will only get worse. Not that immigration is a disease, because it isn't. But we won't solve the immigration issue by building a fence and cracking down on illegal immigrants. When the overall economic situation in Mexico improves, it will remove a major motivation for coming to the U.S. to get work. No, free trade isn't a panacea, but it would be helpful.
Germany won most of the Nobel prizes untill Natziism started a huge brain drain , they haven't entirely recovered after eighty years even with many advantages that Cuba and Veniswela will never have.
Allowing people to leave places that are awfull to live in like Mexico and Cuba robs these places of their talented and ambitious persons wholesale,
The US may indeed be well served by skimming the most healthy , intelligent , ambitious , welthy , well educated and religious persons from around the world , but it is robbing most of the world of exactly what they need to advance as we already have.
Allowing people to leave places that are awfull to live in like Mexico and Cuba robs these places of their talented and ambitious persons wholesale,
Wait just a minute. Um, no, it does not rob these places. It is not our fault in those places have allowed and/or created situations that prompt their own people to seek some place else to live. The living situations in those nations may cost them talented and ambitious people, but we are not robbing them.
The US may indeed be well served by skimming the most healthy , intelligent , ambitious , welthy , well educated and religious persons from around the world , but it is robbing most of the world of exactly what they need to advance as we already have.
Again, we're not robbing other countries by allowing immigration. But you seem to be ignoring my point about free trade. Removing needless restrictions on trade would allow more job opportunities in Mexico, and would in the long term result in increased overall prosperity for Mexico, thus substantially reducing the motivation for people come here to the U.S. seeking employment. As I said before, if you treat only the symptoms and not the cause(s) then you're not going to solve the problem.
Restricting Immagration very little, treats a symptom , but does not help the root causes much.
Mexico is corrupt and socialist their economy suffers as a consequence , but they don't need to improve if they can send their best people into a strong economy to earn their money , sending the resulting creation of wealth home .
If the USA were not so accessable they might have to evolve forward and learn to create wealth close to home .
The USA is keeping Mexico afloat with direct infusions of job oppurtunitys and preventing a much needed bloody revolution in Cuba by allowing millions of malcontents to seek freedom and prosperity with a mere two days swim (in shark infested seas harried by ship and aircraft).
If Mexico didn't have this money flow they would have to invent it , exactly as they ought to do.
If Cuba didn't have this pressure release , they would have to change governments once in a while as civilised people do.
The problem is that you do not have to wash what you can throw away and the people of Mexico and Cuba who have the talent, intelligence and strength to fight city hall are tossing their futures close to home in the trash.
There ouht to be an honest and lawfull way to do what has to be done.
There ouht to be an honest and lawfull way to do what has to be done.
That depends on what one believes has to be done.
Controll of this sitation could be taken by an orginised workforce , they could resolve to obey these rediculous laws and bring us to our knees .
The problem with talking about libertarian economists regarding immigration is that they view the matter from a private property perspective.
That is not at all how libertarian economists have formulated the immigration question. [...] Here is exactly what he said:Quote from: Murray RothbardHowever, on rethinking immigration on the basis of the anarcho-capitalist model, it became clear to me that a totally privatized countrywould not have "open borders" at all. If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as "closed" as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.
Looks like a private property perspective to me.
I raise the pure anarcho-capitalist model in this paper, not so much to advocate the model per se as to propose it as a guide for settling vexed current disputes about nationality.
In the first place, foreign nationals are not second class citizens, because they are not citizens at all.Fair enough. I used the wrong word to express myself. Rather than second-class citizens I should have said second-class humans.
Second, all societies, from your bowling team to the United Nations, have a right to define the conditions of membership. There's no such thing as a right to be in a country you are not a citizen of, any more than there's a right to be on property you are not the owner of.
Whoa there. Membership would be citizenship, and no one has argued that the U.S. doesn't have a right to establish it's own rules for citizenship. Setting that strawman aside, to say that one has no right to enter a country of which one is not a citizen by comparing it to tresspassing on private property implies that the country is private property. But of course, it isn't, unless you grant ownership to the government. Is that your assertion then? That the government owns the country?
Third, given that minimizing the presence of an underclass is one of the primary objectives of virtually every government on earth, it would seem counter-productive to encourage the importation of one.
I don't recall seeing that in the Constitution. So I don't accept that as a given. Also I don't accept that government has any business trying to solve the problem of class, underclass, overclass, or any other kind. That you do is interesting. Your case is looking more and more like a defense of socialism.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
So when do we start bombing Iran?Tyranny is the normal case, liberty is the exceptional one.A situation that deserves some effort to rectify.
My concern is maintaining freedom in my own country. Establishing it or maintaining it in other countries is rightfully the concern of the citizens of those countries.
Indeed. This is why I am not arguing for trying to change other countries. I am arguing for liberty in this one, the U.S., the one in which I live. Another strawman put to rest.
I’ve already made it twice. If you can find any contradiction between this statement and my previous one, kindly point it out.And again, if the assertion that my country and culture have accomplished some admirable things and therefore merit an effort to preserve them makes me a bigot, then I'll gladly plead guilty.Nice whitewash. Let me know when you actually get around to making that assertion.
But I did read the article. Twice. Once when it was originally posted, and once now.And [Weigel] provided not one iota of evidence in support of his opinion.I guess you didn't read the article.
Except that unlike Turtledove’s alternate histories, it’s quite possible to compare events that have transpired in the interval since Raspail wrote his novel, and see whether or not he had a salient point. In fact, in my previous post I linked to two of those comparisons, from political points of view as disparate as Murray Rothbard and the Atlantic Monthly. The Atlantic Monthly article, in fact, had an fairly exhaustive analysis of demographic data. Since you’ve obviously not read either the novel nor the supplimental articles, I submit you’re not in any position to opine on whether or not he had a salient point to make or not. I suggest a trip over to ebay to see if you can get a good price on a clue.Would you have been happier if Raspail had used a Klingon invasion of Vulcan to illustrate the dilemma? And would his point be any less salient if he had?
You're assuming his point was salient. You also seem to be assuming that his work of fiction somehow proves something non-fictional. You might as well suggest that Harry Turteldove's alternate histories prove what really would have happened. Yes, fiction can be used to make points about real world situations. The Camp of the Saints hardly proves that Raspail's point of view, or yours, is the correct one. It merely proves that someone can write a novel about it.
So what else do those who call themselves libertarians do for jollies these days - purge and burn copies of Huckleberry Finn from school libraries?
Where did that come from? Disagreeing with a book is hardly the same as calling for a book burning. So many strawmen, so little time.
So you're comparing open borders between the several states with open borders between countries? And you don't see the distinction?
Yes, of course I do. But it doesn't change the fact that your assertion of "open borders" equals "no borders" is a complete fallacy.
Let me give you a cultural quiz:
Stoning a woman to death who's committed adultery is a practice of some religious sects in:
A.) New Hampshire
B.) California
C.) Afghanistan
D.) Hawaii
E.) Arkansas
How did you do?
That does nothing to prove your One World complaint. In fact, I'm not sure what it has to do with this conversation at all. Yes, people in other countries have different cultures, some far more strict than our own. I'm glad you noticed. But last I checked, America was not suffering an influx of adulteress stoning Muslims. They seem to be not generally interesting in coming here to live. And of course there are several predominately Muslim countries in the Middle East, all of which seem to have their own distinct borders. So again, it not only does not prove your point, it contradicts your point.
Excuse me, but when a sovereign country’s representitive government has made laws at the behest of the people to establish conditions for entry, something that every sovereign nation is within it’s rights to do, and those laws are flouted, that is a violation of the national right of sovereignty, the citizen’s right of free association (in this case, the expressed preference to not associate), and can be quite reasonably be construed as an act of aggression as well.
If you're going to put it that way, I have yet to see one proposal for prohibiting burglary that does not involve some measure of infringing on the liberty of those native born who live within the nation. But you've yet to establish that the liberty to commit burglaries or aid and abet people who are in the country illegally is a legitimate right.
I don't recall arguing that people had a right to commit theft. So I see no reason to attempt to defend that bizarre position. And I also don't recall saying that people had a right to aid or abet people here illegally. What I do recall is that I have not been arguing in favor of illegal immigration, but rather in favor of open borders, which would end most illegal immigration by eliminating the needless legal barriers to most immigration. For those keeping count at home, that is one more strawman on the trash pile.
I should point out here that immigration is not like murder or theft. Murder and theft and the like violate other people's rights, interfere with their lives against their will. Immigration does not. There is nothing inherently criminal about moving from one place to another. Moving from, say, Mexico to the U.S., or vice-versa, does not infringe on anyone's rights. There is no moral imperative for having laws against immigration as there is for laws against murder and theft. So suggesting the immigration should be easier is not really like saying theft or murder should be easier. Saying the borders should be open is more like saying all people should be free and there should be no slavery.
Identification requirements and background check are not necessarily done at the behest of the government. They're generally done because most employers have an aversion to hiring embezzlers, drug addicts and habitual criminals. To be in this country illegally is obviously a crime. I didn't say the government should mandate identification. The government should increase the penalty for knowingly aiding and abetting someone who has committed the crime of entering the country illegally. How the employer does his due diligence is his affair.I see, you want to make businesses do the work of law enforcement. But you're missing an important distinction. A business deciding to perform background checks is not the same as government telling businesses who they can and cannot hire. And for many businesses and jobs, a person's country of origin has little bearing on whether or not he can do the job. And getting back to the liberty part of this, the liberty involved here is that of people to decide for themselves with whom to make an agreement of exchange. There is nothing criminal about that, and it violates no one's rights. Interfereing with that, however, does violate people's rights. If you don't want to do business with poor people from other cultures, that is your business. But you don't have grounds to deny someone else the ability to do business with people you don't like.
And again, I can't help but notice that your position looks a lot like a socialist one. Protecting the nation from enemies of the people, from the undue influence of other cultures, et cetera. You say you're interested in maintaining the freedom in your country, but you want the government to tell people how to run their businesses. You say this country and culture have accomplished some admirable things and therefore merit an effort to preserve them, but you seem to be ignoring this country and culture are both mixtures of influences from people of many different countries and of different cultures.
You seem to be ignoring that some of this country's achievements were made possible by its openness to immigrants, not by being closed to them.
when you remove the operative qualifier
How about we put it back in?
I raise the pure anarcho-capitalist model in this paper, not so much to advocate the model per se as to propose it as a guide for settling vexed current disputes about nationality. The pure model, simply, is that no land areas, no square footage in the world, shall remain "public"; every square foot of land area, be they streets, squares, or neighborhoods, is privatized. Total privatization would help solve nationality problems, often in surprising ways, and I suggest that existing states, or classical liberal states, try to approach such a system even while some land areas remain in the governmental sphere. |
And you managed to avoid addressing his major point - if a right doesn’t exist even in a society whose highest value is “maximum libertyâ€, where does it magically appear within a society where the demands of liberty have a lesser priority?
In either case, the responsibility of a government is to the interests of it’s own citizens. As a matter of fact, yes, the interests of foreign nationals are of secondary importance.
The owner of the country is the sovereign. In the case of this country, that would be the collective citizens of the United States. As the proxy for that collective, and the steward of that property, yes, the government has authority akin to property rights over the territory of the United States.
In case you hadn’t noticed, property rights don’t include political sovereignty. Your property is still subject to the laws prevailing in the political jurisdiction where it’s located.
Quote from: US ConstitutionThe Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
I fail to see how promoting the growth of an underclass could be construed as “provding for the general welfareâ€. I don’t think many other people would, either.
And no, recognition of public obligations is not necessarily socialist. The public obligation in a socialist society is a positive one - “social responsibilityâ€. The public obligation in a free society is a negative one - “do no harmâ€.
While it arguably may not be within the government’s rightful authority to advance wealth transfer programs to eradicate an underclass, I think most of us would agree that formulating policies actively promoting the growth of one would be a decided harm and detriment to the general welfare. You don’t have to be a socialist to recognize that.
So when do we start bombing Iran?
Allow me to add an addenda - it’s the obligation of the government of this country to secure the liberty and advance the interests of it’s own citizens. It has no obligation to do any such thing for foreign nationals.
And again, if the assertion that my country and culture have accomplished some admirable things and therefore merit an effort to preserve them makes me a bigot, then I'll gladly plead guilty.Nice whitewash. Let me know when you actually get around to making that assertion.
I’ve already made it twice. If you can find any contradiction between this statement and my previous one, kindly point it out.
But I did read the article. Twice. Once when it was originally posted, and once now.
And he still presented little data in support his opinion, and the data he did present undermined it.
Further, an examination of the polling data of voter priorities demonstrates his assertion that the Republicans lost over immigration rather than the war is just plain wrong. Here’s a sample:
CBS News/New York Times Poll. May 18-23, 2007. N=1,125 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
.
"What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?"
That’s just one poll. I’ll be presenting several dozen others in my next post rebutting your post interpreting the NY Times immigration poll, and your case is not looking good.
Except that unlike Turtledove’s alternate histories, it’s quite possible to compare events that have transpired in the interval since Raspail wrote his novel, and see whether or not he had a salient point.
I’d say an attempt to discredit a major work by an award-winning and highly respected author by attempting to associate it with the Turner Diaries is as close as you’re going to get without the matches. And it doesn’t say much about your knowledge of literature, either.
Perhaps your time would be more profitably spent teaching your straw man to sing “If I Only Had a Brainâ€.
And the point of having borders you’re not going to enforce is....?
That I picked an extreme example to make my point does not negate the point. That being, not all cultures are necessarily compatible.
And what it has to do with this conversation is that the United States, in all it’s diversity, is still more or less a single cultural and political entity, variances notwithstanding. And that is the distinction between open borders between states and open border between countries.
Excuse me, but when a sovereign country’s representitive government has made laws at the behest of the people to establish conditions for entry, something that every sovereign nation is within it’s rights to do, and those laws are flouted, that is a violation of the national right of sovereignty, the citizen’s right of free association (in this case, the expressed preference to not associate), and can be quite reasonably be construed as an act of aggression as well.
I’m not telling him who he can do business with. He’s perfectly free to do business with whomever he choses. What he isn’t allowed to do is import foreign nationals into this country in circumvention of the law, or aid and abet someone who is here illegally. If he wants to do business with someone the law has determined shouldn’t be in this country, he’s free to go to their country to do it.
I have yet to find an economist of note, of any political stripe, that believes immigration of this nature is a net benefit to the United States. Even those that support it do so not on the grounds that it’s beneficial to the citizens of the United States, indeed, they acknowledge it’s not beneficial to citizens of the United States, but because it’s beneficial to citizens of other countries.
Given that you are proposing to force the United States to be, to paraphrase H.L. Menken, a milch-cow with 5 billion tits to the world, over the objection of a substantial majority of it’s citizens, I submit you are the one defending the socialist position. Socialism, after all, is a system demanding the forced redistribution of wealth. It has nothing to do with defending one’s borders and culture.
I’ve yet to see anyone submit any evidence that the country as a whole would be any worse off had it not had the massive influx of immigration post 1890. In fact, that massive influx of immigrants coincided with the changes in the relationship between the citizenry and the government that most people who call themselves libertarians strenuously object to.
The only evidence I’ve ever heard in support of that proposition amounts to “My grampa was an immigrant!â€.
If you're implying that liking my country's language, customs, culture and political institutions just as they are, and don't see how a massive influx of third world poor will provide an improvement makes me some kind of a [fac,rac,national,class,a-zA-Z,]*ist, then it will just have to. I do, and I'm not apologizing for it.
QuoteIf you're implying that liking my country's language, customs, culture and political institutions just as they are, and don't see how a massive influx of third world poor will provide an improvement makes me some kind of a [fac,rac,national,class,a-zA-Z,]*ist, then it will just have to. I do, and I'm not apologizing for it.
I'll give you credit for being honest about what this debate is really about. It annoys me to no end to hear "conservatives" talk about Homeland Security as the priority for strict immigration controls. Or their fears of emergency room problems.
Regardless, I do have a question. What specific customs and culture are in danger from an influx of Mexican immigrants? Is that danger any more real than past worries concerning Irish, Polish, Italian, or other large groups of immigrants?
BTW, I thank you for appearing in this thread. You make a wonderful Exhibit A in support of Mr. Derbyshire's argument.
The proposition that immigration was a Wonderful Thing for this country has generaly been advanced and ratified after fact by, er, those self-same immigrants and their descendants. Not exactly what I'd call an unbiased opinion. If I was truly looking for an example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument, I couldn't do better.
QuoteBTW, I thank you for appearing in this thread. You make a wonderful Exhibit A in support of Mr. Derbyshire's argument.
You never answered my question.
The culture and customs that have consumed this entire thread, of course! Political - specifically a tendency towards collectivist, redistributionist government. Not that Mexican immigrants have a monopoly on that tendency. The just happen to be the largest proportion of immigrants at the present time.
I'm a lawyer not (tsk, tsk) a logician. Your "guilt by association" seems dangerously akin to my "reasoning from analogy," the basis upon which precedent is made.
Controll of this sitation could be taken by an orginised workforce , they could resolve to obey these rediculous laws and bring us to our knees .
Plane, what the frak are you talking about?
That isn't culture and customs, that is political philosophy.
There aren't any customs or culture you are afraid of losing?
If the migrants were not provideing themseves at bargan rates the system as it is would fall apart.
If the migrants chose to obey these rediculous laws the law would have to be changed .
The migrants need a union, without an organisation thay as a group are powerless and as individuals are highly exploitable .
If the migrants were not provideing themseves at bargan rates the system as it is would fall apart.
It would change, not fall apart. The market is not so fragile as that, but it is adaptable.
We agree then, the system as it is depends on the avalibility of Illeagal workers who are practicly all blackmailed , if they were not here as illeaals the system wouldbe forced to change.
If the migrants chose to obey these rediculous laws the law would have to be changed .
Which laws? The immigration laws? And why would they have to be changed? I'm trying to understand what you're saying, but you're leaving me very little with which to work.
If they all packed up and went home and stopped comeing here in obedience to the law as it is it would amount to the largest strike in all history. Do we really keep track of how much we depend on them?
The law is badly made and not getting much better , I like the chnges that President Bush is pushing , but I imagine tat even he would call them too modest a change.
The migrants need a union, without an organisation thay as a group are powerless and as individuals are highly exploitable .
Uh, no. The notion that every social problem needs an authoritarian, top-down plan to solve it is simply not true. They, like most other people in the country, need government to stop getting in their way.
We agree then, the system as it is depends on the avalibility of Illeagal workers who are practicly all blackmailed , if they were not here as illeaals the system wouldbe forced to change.
If they all packed up and went home and stopped comeing here in obedience to the law as it is it would amount to the largest strike in all history. Do we really keep track of how much we depend on them?
The law is badly made and not getting much better
Oh yes they do ,if a top down organisation doesn't appeal to them then they should get a bottom up one , but any way at all they remain helpless as long as they remain unorganised.
The government will continue to do the wrong thing to people who have no realistic represntaion , they won't be strikeing , voteing , benefiting from police protection , participateing in our society as long as they can be excluded and blackmailed into accepting it.
The government will continue to do the wrong thing to people who have no realistic represntaion , they won't be strikeing , voteing , benefiting from police protection , participateing in our society as long as they can be excluded and blackmailed into accepting it.
Wow. Nicely said.
You probably would have spelled it all corectly.
We agree then, the system as it is depends on the availability of Illegal workers who are practically all blackmailed , if they were not here as illegals the system would be forced to change.
That is not how I would put it, but what the frell. I'm tired of arguing.
Can this be enough organization to take concerted action?
If they all packed up and went home and stopped coming here in obedience to the law as it is it would amount to the largest strike in all history. Do we really keep track of how much we depend on them?
Ah-so. Yes, that is probably true.
The law is badly made and not getting much better
That may be the understatement of the day.
Oh yes they do ,if a top down organization doesn't appeal to them then they should get a bottom up one , but any way at all they remain helpless as long as they remain unorganized.
They seem pretty well organized on protest days.
That is what I like about a Union , and what I like about using obedience of the law to bring about change , this law is actually contributing to the deaths of migrants at sea and in the deserts , but enough are breaking through to support the situation as it is comfortably.
The government will continue to do the wrong thing to people who have no realistic representation , they won't be striking , voting , benefiting from police protection , participating in our society as long as they can be excluded and blackmailed into accepting it.
Wow. Nicely said.
The problem I have with a union is that union leadership tends to start getting into the same power plays that governments do. Raising dues at will to pay for this or that, spending dues money without really consulting the union members, trying to control who works when and how, all that jazz.
Point taken, but the question that comes to my mind is: are those really the only two alternatives?
Nothing in particular. Just wondering if government abuse and union abuse are really the only two alternatives.