Also, here is an interesting video on white nationalism and libertarianism:
White Nationalism and Libertarianism (some swearing)
I am for “illegal” immigration without a welfare state/“public” goods…but am for restricting immigration when these entities exist. I would much rather spend efforts on getting rid of the welfare state/public goods than restricting immigration because that is really the root of the issue. The problem I have with illegal immigration in this particular environment is that when these services are provided there is a very strong incentive to cross borders and free ride the system. In addition, them being illegal makes them able to avoid paying taxes and simply puts an already inefficient system under more strain and debt. Illegals use public hospitals without fully paying, overcrowd already crammed school systems/ forces teachers to deal in mutliple languages, find ways to get illegal welfare (fake SS cards, etc), and abuse other public goods (roads, utilities, etc).
While some might say that illegal immigrants are extremely useful ways of “circumventing” state restrictionist laws (minimum wage/unions/labor regulations), I think that this only puts more pressure on the government to crack down on businesses and further hamper the private commerce. In addition, I find the “having more illegals puts more pressure on the welfare/public goods sector which will quicken its demise” is a rather weak argument. From what I see, having illegals only strengths the welfare state because elected officials play the pathos argument (how can you let these hardworking people suffer, etc), cry of about a lack of funding when they see the school systems are even more overcrowded.
I am for “illegal” immigration without a welfare state/“public” goods…but am for restricting immigration when these entities exist.
So, you’re against the government when it’s convenient for you, and for the government when it’s convenient for you.
I am for telling the government to screw off and die in all cases, I would rather have everyone in the third world in the United States than a single additional Stasi thug at the ports.
Well not all of those things are convenient for me, I don’t use the public school system (anymore), I’m pretty healthy and hopefully won’t have to use the hospital system, S.S doesn’t affect me (regardless of Illegals it won’t be around when I’m at the eligbible age), and I hopefully won’t ever have to enroll/enlist in the welfare system. Illegals in this environment just further undermine the system and cause more intervention in the marketplace (bigger government programs/additional taxes to pay for such programs) which leads to more direct/indirect problems and further intervention.
I would never agree with a bill to increase illegal immigration enforcement. Like I said earlier, I’m just for concentrating on efforts to remove the welfare system while ignoring the immigration problem for now. Once public goods have retired from the economic scene, then I would move my efforts towards removing illegal immigration enforcement (a staggered approach would also work, but with more emphasis on removing public goods).
Yes, the gypsy settlers from Romania or where turned out great, until Sarkozy kicked them out.
It was native born white Americans who ruined this country, and continue to. If we’re going to have immigration restrictions, how about this: no one from any democratic, republican or generally welfarist European government should be allowed into the country!
As far as welfare goes, anyways, it’s stolen money so better that unemployed Mexicans have it than the government.
I’m sensing that your opposition to immigration control maybe deeper than opposition to government. No one said anything anyone ruining any country or that immigrants receive welfare money. The facts are that immigrants come for work not welfare benefits.
The problem with the welfare state is that native workers are put on the public doles. These people would normally do low paying menial work, but now the work isn’t being done. So there is a huge demand for foreign labor.
And I also find it somewhat schizophrenic to say, "the government should have immigration restrictions, and people should do their best to violate them whenever it suits their fancy
I have not said you should violate any law. There is no contradiction. In general I think we should obey most laws, at least those restrictions that would likely be present without the state. (don’t murder, steal, trespass)
Somewhat, yes. But, more to the point, nobody has any right to stop them. The roads, schools, vast tracts of uninhabited lands and so forth were created or conquered by the State and thus are not really owned by anyone.
I guess you and i differ a bit on how we view public property. I don’t see it as unowned, just because money and property is confiscated by the government dosent make it unowned. The same way that if someone steals my watch, its still my watch. I see it more as owned by those who paid for it. Namely tax payers. So the tax payers should have a right to restrict its use through the only means available to them. The function that government serves in this case is little different than that of a private company that would own roads, with the tax payers being the equivalent of stockholders.
I’m sensing that your opposition to immigration control maybe deeper than opposition to government.
No, that’s pretty much it. That and economics. I was born in Arizona and family is Dutch-Danish and has been living in the U.S. or the West Indies since the 18th century, so if anything I sociologically fit the anti-immigration position. I just find it to be ridiculous and pointless.
In general I think we should obey most laws, at least those restrictions that would likely be present without the state.
I think people might want to obey laws because they’ll get robbed or shot if they don’t. That being the case, I don’t think even criminals (as in, murderers) have any obligation to recognize the authority of the police because such an entity does not represent their victims to begin with. Now, a cop might be justified in shooting a killer, but not because he is a cop.
I guess you and i differ a bit on how we view public property. I don’t see it as unowned, just because money and property is confiscated by the government dosent make it unowned.
Other than near term immanent domain and such, it’s inane and crazy to pretend we could track down who had what stolen, who is owed what, and so forth. Everyone is owed damages by the state, even if they weren’t literally taxed or what have you. Tax payers are not ‘stock holders’; they are either victims or accomplices of the state; in neither case would this give them any right to use the State against other people performing capitalist acts (like moving).
No, that’s pretty much it. That and economics. I was born in Arizona and family is Dutch-Danish and has been living in the U.S. or the West Indies since the 18th century, so if anything I sociologically fit the anti-immigration position. I just find it to be ridiculous and pointless.
It is irrelevent what your heritage is. Some of the most fervent supporters of open boarders are white. The reason I say that there is more to it is because some of the language you have used. You havent yet made an economic arguement for open boarders, only your opposititon to the state.
The truth is some of what the state does is legitiamte. Police protection from murders, theives, and protecting private property is something that would exist in a free market. So if you want to rage against taxes that is fine, but raging against all that is done by government only because the government does it is a bit much.
Just it is legitamite for the police to protect your property rights, it could be legitimate for police to control who moves through public land.
I think people might want to obey laws because they’ll get robbed or shot if they don’t. That being the case, I don’t think even criminals (as in, murderers) have any obligation to recognize the authority of the police because such an entity does not represent their victims to begin with. Now, a cop might be justified in shooting a killer, but not because he is a cop.
Just word games. In our current system the police do represent the victims. We could say a security guard might be justified in shooting a killer, but not because he is a security guard.
it’s inane and crazy to pretend we could track down who had what stolen, who is owed what, and so forth.
Never claimed we could or even should. I agree that it is impossible. What I was getting at is taht collective ownership of property is not illegitamite. So when the government operates as the manager of such property it is a legitamite function. Now again rage against taxes that fund the system, or when the government seizes land, etc. but not against otherwise legitimate functions that would occur in a free market.
Tax payers are not ‘stock holders’; they are either victims or accomplices of the state; in neither case would this give them any right to use the State against other people performing capitalist acts (like moving).
Most tax payers are all three at the same time. Accomplices, victims, and stock holders. Public property is not unowned, it is the property of those it was taken from… the public.
If we lived in a free society Im sure we would agree on most things, but as long as the government exists… yes I am going to support some things and not others. Blindly tearing down the walls of your house because they have been tainted with rot, may result in the whole place coming down around your ears. No, I would prefer to recognize those things that can be fixed without causing more harm.
You havent yet made an economic arguement for open boarders, only your opposititon to the state.
I just assume that you can read Mises as easily as I can repeat him.
Just it is legitamite for the police to protect your property rights, it could be legitimate for police to control who moves through public land.
- The ‘public’ does not exist; 2) ‘public land’ does not exist; 3) it is not legitimate for the police to enforce property rights, it is legitimate regardless of whether or not they are police. If you want to put up a ten foot fence around your ranch and shoot everyone who climbs over it, go ahead. But if you’re pretending the huge tracts of the Rio Grand are or ever were anyone’s property, you’re being ridiculous.
Just word games.
Nonsense, it is precisely the state quality which makes it problematic.
What I was getting at is taht collective ownership of property is not illegitamite.
And if an actually propertarian-contractarian entity, like PepsiCo or some town you found, want to designate ‘collective’ property or joint stock ownership that is fine. But that has nothing to do with the State, it has no authority, or right, everything it has is stolen. It has no right to even use the capital it controls to enforce laws.
but not against otherwise legitimate functions that would occur in a free market.
Nothing on the free market is done using stolen goods against people acting on unowned property; the state can not do anything right. A murderer has as much right to steal a police car as the policed department has to chase him with it.
Public property is not unowned, it is the property of those it was taken from… the public.
More reified gibberish. If it is anyone’s property it is the specific individuals it was taken from, and not of some mystical entity ‘the public’. But as it is humanly impossible to rationally trace ownership claims, it again devolves into being unowned. But most of it wasn’t even taken from anyone to begin with, it’s just endless tracts of desertified land and forest. This never did belong to anyone, and does not now, though it might have if people were free to act settle there.
You’re basically just coming up with confused rationalizations for what is, and always has been, an anti-liberal position. You’re no better than the warfare libertarians and Randroids who scream we have to bomb the Chinese because they’re a threat to our liberty.
No matter WHAT the situation, I refuse to use the violence of the state. It is profoundly immoral to restrict the free movement of others with threats of violence and detainment, even if it may somewhat approximate our predictions of what would happen in a free society. As a natural law libertarian, this issue is rather simple for me to answer. I can see why utilitarians would have such trouble over it, though.
No matter WHAT the situation, I refuse to use the violence of the state.
Likewise.
It is profoundly immoral to restrict the free movement of others with threats of violence and detainment, even if it may somewhat approximate our predictions of what would happen in a free society.
I am not going to try to argue for or against the ‘immorality’ of restricting people’s free movements, as I think transcendent moralism is hopelessly nonsensical. However, I am going to say that your deployment of terms is rather ambiguous and contradictory. Keeping people out of your house is the deployment of threats of violence and/or kidnapping. Propertarianism, like Statism, is coercive and authoritarian. The question is what sort of coercion and authority is to be socially acceptable. A guy on Youtube has pretty well summed up my views on this.
As a natural law libertarian, this issue is rather simple for me to answer.
Well, so long as you consider your mystical tenents to be unambiguous, anything can be easy to answer. ‘God abhors gays’, etc. But that does not make it logically defensible, which is (combined with my view that natural rights are fundamentally confused) why I find a ‘rightist’ or Randian tactic to be rather useless except as some sort of emotional or religious appeal.
I can see why utilitarians would have such trouble over it, though.
Well, almost anyone concerned with facts about reality is going to have a harder time than someone who deploys subjective preferences as objective laws. However, as a quasi-utilitarian I have no problem with this because I believe the state is systemically useless and anti-social and that it is an absolutely crazy way to attempt to manage or gain social order.
You’re right about the terms thing; my apologies. I meant the unspoken caveat of “except in cases of legitimate property ownership”. I think the big issue, though, is the initiation of force. An invasion of another man’s property without his consent would be an initiation of the use of force–one which could be legitimately met with retaliatory violence. Keeping an immigrant from crossing unowned land would be an initiation of force. Keeping him from entering your OWN property would be retaliatory/defensive force.
As of right now, I rather agree with Cicero that “True law is right reason in agreement with nature;”–so I guess we aren’t actually as in disagreement as we may think, considering reason would be both of our tools in this. I, however, believe that reason would lead us to a universal code of ethics–certainly not my own subjective valuations–that would only cover such things as mankind’s right to his liberty and property. I must confess a certain amount of ignorance, though, if you wish me to go into great detail about this; my education still continues and I really need to go read Stefan Molyneux’s “Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics”.
I think the big issue, though, is the initiation of force.
But it’s only ‘initiation’ within the bounds of an authoritarian system of property claims. Now, I have no problem with this - I am a big supporter of private property and private law. But I think it is either semantic or dishonest to pretend that somehow my legally recognized ability to shoot at people crossing a certain abstract boundry is not initiation of force, it certainly is. It just happens that I support propertarian-liberal legal norms and I do not support statist or communistic legal norms.
As of right now, I rather agree with Cicero that “True law is right reason in agreement with nature;”–so I guess we aren’t actually as in disagreement as we may think, considering reason would be both of our tools in this. I, however, believe that reason would lead us to a universal code of ethics
Well, this is ambiguous. I think that if we use ethics in the sense of a system of rules, norms and practices that coordinate into some cohesive pattern then this is fine. If you mean in the sense that we can ‘prove’ that stabbing random people is ‘wrong’, I entirely disagree. I think it is quite possible to be ethically consistent and act like Genghis Khan. What I am concerned with in preventing or defeating the various Khans is not because I think they have committed some error in judgment (they may or may not have) but because it does not jibe with my understanding of social order or personal preferences.
Molyneux is quite problematic, though I do agree with his point in UPB that many normative claims or jurisprudential norms are self-contradictory and impossible to practice. However, I do not think he ‘proves’ morality, rather he shoots holes in certain moral claims other people make.
This is a very good point; one I’m afraid I have no satisfactory rebuttal to. Would anyone wiser than I care to take a stab at this?
In the end, though, isn’t there always going to be some sort of ultimate “given” in any discussion regarding this? Why is it bad to stab someone and take his wallet? Well, believer in a universal code of ethics would say that it is immoral. A utilitarian might say that it is bad for the social order or something (I’m not sure). We could keep asking “Why is that bad?” until we get to a “Just because” at SOME point. Or am I missing something here?
In the end, though, isn’t there always going to be some sort of ultimate “given” in any discussion regarding this? Why is it bad to stab someone and take his wallet? Well, believer in a universal code of ethics would say that it is immoral. A utilitarian might say that it is bad for the social order or something (I’m not sure). We could keep asking “Why is that bad?” until we get to a “Just because” at SOME point. Or am I missing something here?
I agree, which is why I find natural rightsism and deontological or transcendent ethics to be worthless and irrelevant. A much better tact, the one most people actually deploy in practice, is how certain rules or laws don’t make any sense or result in ridiculous outcomes; and to point to alternative methods of resolving these difficulties. It may not be as simple as dumbly repeating “A is A” every time someone wants a welfare check, but it’s a lot better at producing useful arguments rather than value judgments packaged as a priori facts.
I have no doubt that some people, through ignorance or strangeness in temperament, will be inclined to act against propertarian-liberal norms, and that these people may be internally consistent and doing the ‘right’ thing, that is the thing that is most likely (given their knowledge) to achieve what they aim at. What does one say to these people? “Stop or I’ll shoot,” works for me.
I guess; but to play devil’s advocate, why is it bad that certain rules don’t make sense or have ridiculous outcomes–isn’t that just a value judgment?
I guess; but to play devil’s advocate, why is it bad that certain rules don’t make sense or have ridiculous outcomes–isn’t that just a value judgment?
Their being logically inconsistent or impossible to implement (either technically or logically) is not a value judgment, it’s just a fact. Their having crazy outcomes does involve value judgments, though I think that many of these are common enough that - if people understood anything - they would clearly oppose rules which generated such outcomes.
Well, I must, like Socrates, admit that I know nothing–of this topic, at least–and need to study more. You’ve given me quite a bit to think on, Edmund. Thanks.
I never understood why some people make a distinction between utilitarian and ethical arguments either. The former is a species of the later, unless one is restricting “utilitarian” to the very unusual “purely economic” sense, at which point it has no normative explanatory power by definition.
In practice I think it stems from two sources, Rothbardian dislike for Utilitarian doctrines and religious anti-naturalism. I think that utilitarianism and (what is not the same thing) consequentialism are pretty much what makes up any coherent ethics. I simply don’t care about any sort of normative claims that do not involve technical ones.