I thought people think and act separately, individually. I even thought this individualism was a great part of libertarianism…
Indeed, it is. But, then, if you are a libertarian, how can you treat people according to their belonging to their People? But, wait… Do people even belong to their People? Do “People” even exist? Well, yes: if you are a socialist–or, more precisely, a national-socialist.
Paul’s entire immigration plateform is inconstant with a libertarian stand, imo. Don’t know how he got from consistent individualism to collectivst thinking on immigration. He ought to drop it.
You’re right. In fact, I could understand the argument according to which any move from the status quo towards a less statist situation = a move in the good direction, and an improvement. But, the move we are talking about, here, is a move in the american voting minds for future elections (Ron Paul has not even a chance to get to the final race, right?).
So, the point is: why not support a real libertarian candidate? Wouldn’t the benefice of the bigger effects that Pau’s campaign will have be more than balanced by the spread of a better (and, as you said, clearer) message?
i.e. isn’t supporting R.P. a loss for a libertarian?
So, another question: aren’t there better, real libertarian candidates to support?
Most of Ron Paul’s message is libertarian, and he’s reaching a lot of people we wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. So, I think its a very good thing he’s out there and campaigning. If he dropped the anti-immigration nonsense, he’d have a message I could completely get behind and he’d stop alienating his core support base.
As a matter of fact, you may be right: i simply do not know.
As for the core support : maybe is his immigration nonsense very profitable for him, politically speaking, even though terrible, from a lib. point of view.
Maybe that’s why he gets so much more attention that a real lib. candidate would.
But, are those people the first that should be reached? -Given that they are the farthest from a lib. position.
Ron Paul is not 100% Liberterian and has quite a few statist positions. Immigration is one of them.
The issue here is degree. Ron Paul has a platform that is significantly more pro-liberty than any other candidate for either party in my life time certainly and probably you would have to look back to the founding of the country or at least into the 19th century to find one on the level of Ron Paul.
Please don’t let immigration hang you up. He has so many pro-liberty stances that he is the only choice for a future of liberty and prosperity for the entire world. Here are the biggies: 1. Anti-Federal Reserve, 2. Anti-Intervention, 3. Anti-UN/IMF/WB/all super-governmental organizations, 4. Pro-Individual Trade with others in and out of the country, 5. Pro-Travel of US Citizens abroad. 6. Anti-Security State.
We should delve into Ron Paul’s immigration stance more deeply as well. When he ran in 88 he said there shouldn’t be any quotas on immigration, but we may be faced with an invasion if the status quo continues. Think about the way he wants to stop illegal immigration. He’s against the fence and even called it offensive, he wants to get rid of the incentives. How is it fair to tax someone to give that money to someone who’s breaking the law? Paul supports immigration, it’s the welfare state he has a problem with, an illegal immigration is mostly an offshoot of that.
Nations which seem to be the disproportionate source of terrorists. When you’re on a plane and you hear someone scream, “To our homeland, or we will all die!”, it’s usually not with an Irish brogue. Only a fool would not notice that. The guys who parked the first bomb in the bottom of the World Trade Center weren’t Scandanavian. And while I’m sure somewhere there has to be a black transexual midget who is just dying to strap on a bomb belt and run into a disco somewhere, that’s the general demographic of Howard Stern guests, not the one of which terrorists are made. We could out of pure principle or political correctness not notice that, but then that’s a bit of a stupid thing to do. If young men from the middle east tend to want to blow up your citizens at a much higher rate than say 70 year old caucasian visiting professors of Old English literature from Oxford, you’d be a moron to treat both groups equally.
I think even though his policy is pretty statist its one that can be understandable in these times since as someone has already mentioned the welfare state is out of hand and it has to be controlled somehow. After its able to be completely taken out I’m sure his 1988 stance on immigration will be what he endorses.
So, shall we ban students from Egypt? after all, that’s where Mahamed Atta came from. Then what visa shall we give to the son or grandson of Hosni Mubarrak after he helps us torture suspected terrorists? What about Pakistan? (where Taleban is from, and where Osama himself is hiding) What visa shall we give to the sons and daughters of Musharaff and Bhutto when they want to study at Harvard?
After you answer these questions, here’s another one: do you think the US will have better relationship with Egypt and Pakistan if we limit ourselves to be in contact with only the power elite of these countries instead of promoting private contact and trade with the people of those countries.
On top of that, think of individuals as zombies of the state is itself a very collectivist logic . . . incidentally the same logic that came to the conclusion that bombing WTC and killing thousands of innocent people in the process was somehow a way of punishing the US foreign policy.
It’s impossible for a statist to be a 100% consistent individualist, even one as comparitively libertarian as Paul. He’s just the best cross between the radical and the electable, for the time being. Whether you think that justifies voting for him or not is another discussion, though…
So terrorist nations are “disproportionate source of terrorists” ?
But, are nations the “source” of their members? Well, no, just the reverse…
Do you know there are radical-islamic would-be terrotists with french, english, swiss, dutch, german, etc. passports?
Or maybe a nation is something else than that: maybe Paul ought to ban muslim englishmen, too, because, hey, there are much more terrorists among “english muslims” than among many other “groups” : that’s statistics… “only a fool would not notice that”…
Even, with the same pseudo-argument, why not ban all muslims? For, all muslim terrorists are muslims, no? Isn’t that religion a “disproportionate source of terrorists”?
Final cut: after all, just to be sure, why not ban all believers? for monotheism is a disproportionate source of terrorists: i never heard of an atheist wearing a bomb belt…
DrunknMunky - You know, everyone keeps making that argument, and I always ask why then don’t you eliminate the tax supported benefits from non-citizens? Seems like a real obvious answer without harming those who are really in the U.S. to better their lives through hard work.
Quick precision: “national-socialist” does not refer to the nazi-support affair, of course, but to the fact that ALL statist socialism is a national-socialism, except for internationalists who defend the idea of One Big WorldWide State. Those socialists believe in “mankind” as a whole; all the other believe in the existence of “peoples”. Libertarians (i argue) beliveve that individuals, and individuals only, exist.
The question I believe was along the lines of the following: “What is a terrorist nation?” And my post answered that question. Now, perhaps you could stop assuming you know my positions when I point out, simply enough, that rhetorical BS questions like, “What is a terrorist nation?” and parallel ones like “How do you fight a war on a word?” and what not have simple, practical, and relevant answers, and that perhaps not everyone who thinks differently than anarcho capitalists is a complete moron.
Where in my post did I suggest banning them? I merely pointed out the obvious, that people of a certain ethnic background, which despite exceptions, who tend to come from certain nations, make up the bulk of terrorists. Where in my post did I suggest a policy action towards them or specifically defend RP’s proposal? You know that famouns saying about the word assume which parses the word a bit?
The general point, which maybe you guys will get after you’ve had your asses handed to you politically for another few thousand years, is that sitting around nudging each other in the ribs and beguiling yourselves with your own wonderous rhetorical skills and trivia, is that people of considerable brain power disagree with you and their positions are not entirely without merit. The sooner you learn that and stop asking BS questions like “What is a terrorist nation?”, which do nothing but cement your ideological purity with others of your ilk and vault you to the heights of the Mises Forum fame for Standing On Principle, and start actually engaging with people in the real world, you might make some progress in getting the US and the world to move towards a more individual liberty oriented way of doing things.
More to the point, RP as president would be vastly better than anyone else as president. He is not a Libertarian, he is not running as one. And while he commits the apparently unforgivable sin of being less than perfect in his application of anarcho capitalist principle to any and every possible scenario, would you rather live in his America or Clinton’s? The perfect is the enemy of the good. And what amazes me is why in a place where people should be more economically oriented in though people don’t seem to understand that capital, all capital including political capital, has to be created and accumulated. It doesn’t just pop into existence for everyone to use and benefit from. And how you expect to accumulate that capital by forming internet cliques and amazing yourselves with how superior you are to people who disagree with you I have no idea.
Practical reality: most terrorists are of middle eastern background. Yes there are subtleties. Yes there are exceptions. The rule holds true enough that not acknowledging it is at the very least stupid, if not reckless and negligent. That fact does not translate into a set policy of banning students and/or all immigrants. It is just a reality, which I believe you asked for clarification on. Do I want all immigration from terrorist nations banned? No. But I do want more stringent standards on immigration from those countries and specifically young Muslim men from anywhere, at the very least until we can get foreign policy changed and stop pissing off young Muslim men so much that a goodly number of them seem to be willing to combust to take a few US citizens out. Until that changes I don’t see it as unreasonable to let fact inform policy decisions.
In fact, you didn’t answer the question at all. Take the population of a country, compare to how many terrorists have those countries passports, and… well i do not know the results, of course, but i am sure those countries are europeans, not asian, or middle-asian.
And the “ethnic background” argument (sic) is no answer, for a nation is not based on an ethnical backgound (consider the english, french, belgian, dutch, etc. populations).
Indeed, here we are! Amazing, but I am not the example of the perfectly pure anarcho capitalist idealist! Behold, your amazing discovery. What’s you next act of massive brilliance and insight, you gonna invent the spork or something?
Of course we all know ethnicity and nationality are not perfectly aligned. But last time I went overseas it seemed people of similar colors, religions, ethnicity, etc., still tended to group together rather than mix for the most part. And anyway, reread the post as I’ve expanded it. Bottom line is for every hundred immigrants from Iran I don’t think the percentage of Scandanavian English professors over 70 will be significant. Of course if you insist on talking about things in only absolute terms, that kind of limits the discussion.