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:
However, 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.
Yes, when you remove the operative qualifier, it does. 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.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I do.
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.
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.
Tyranny is the normal case, liberty is the exceptional one.
A situation that deserves some effort to rectify.
So when do we start bombing Iran?
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.
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.
And [Weigel] provided not one iota of evidence in support of his opinion.
I guess you didn't read the article.
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?" Open-ended
%
War in Iraq 31
Economy/Jobs 8
Gas/Heating oil crisis 7
Immigration 7
Health care 5
Terrorism (general) 3
President Bush 3
Environment 3
Moral values/Family values 3
Poverty/Homelessness 3
Foreign policy 3
Other 19
Unsure 5
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.
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.
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.
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.
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€.
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.
And the point of having borders you’re not going to enforce is....?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Despite that axiom being repeated
ad nauseam, 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€. Well, so was mine, but my personal benefit of a particular government policy does not necessarily make it great policy.
Ultimately, all nations are nations of immigrants. Notwithstanding, at some point their populations usually stabilize.
