“…never initiate any act of violence regardless how likely a “libertarian” result may appear. To do so is to reduce yourself to a statist. There are no exceptions to this rule. Either you are fundamentally consistent or not. A New Libertarian is fundamentally consistent and one who is not fundamentally consistent is not a New Libertarian.”
SEK3
Well, surely one could work within the state, to try to limit it to its more necessary functions like national defense. Given that the american people are now all hopped up over this terrorism thing and are likely to be so for a while, isn’t it preferential to limit the american government to protecting its borders from foreign enemies, rather than running an empire that costs trillions as well as thousands of american lives? Ron Paul points out the inconsistency that most of the hijackers were over here on student visas and now we give more visas to their countries of origin than we did before. How is that helping to protect our country? We should give fewer (if any) student visas to people from countries that are known to be breeding grounds for terrorism. Sensible, rational, pragmatic use of government to protect its citizens from a perceived threat.
Also, insead of preemtively invading countries who might seek to acquire the technology that could lead to nuclear weapons…why don’t we just secure our own borders so that a potential nuclear-weapon-hider would have a tougher time sneaking one in? I don’t know how feasible that scenario is, but a lot of the populace is afraid and these wars somehow comfort them…we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to over here is the slogan. Well I think we need to protect ourselves over here so it’s not so easy for them to come over here if they hate us. And if Paul’s non-interventionist policy is implemented there will probably be less hatred for america over time, but in the meantime a strong national defense is important.
As long as it’s there, our federal government should protect its citizens from foreign threats. Securing the border is part of Ron Paul’s national defense policy (in my opinion), the sum-total of which greatly reduces government spending, government aggression, and lives lost…all while protecting our people and our national sovereignty. Well, moreso than the status quo at least and Ron Paul’s the only one suggesting anything noticeably different from the status quo. So what’s wrong with a step in the right direction?
The alleged 9-11 perpetrators consisted of a few brains from Egypt and a bunch of muscles from Saudi Arabia. Notice, none of them came from Iran, Iraq or Syria (countries on the terrorist sponsor list). Egypt is supposed to be one of our most important “allies” in the “war on terrorism” as they torture terrorists for us; Saudi Arabia government combats terrorism too, at least on paper. I’m not even sure how the list of banning student visas would be compiled, aside from by bureacratic whims, closing the barn door after the horse has left.
Given the technology of nuclear weapons, if there is one to be smuggled into this country, it’s not likely to be carried on a person. Nobody would be able to walk through airport security with a fridge-sized thing without setting alarms off, not even with the incompetent unionized government workers we have today for airport security. Shipment in large containers through the ports would be far more likely. No, I’m not advocating shutting down ports. Look, the bottom line is that 9-11, the most severe terrorist attack in history, killed about 3000 people . . . whereas the highway system kills 35,000-50,000 peope every year in this country. We are not exactly shutting down highways. At some point, we have to face the cost-benefit analysis. Legislating by fear is never a winning strategy.
No less important is the difference between hostile governments and friendly individuals (and vice versa). The technocrats that build democracy nowadays in the former Soviet Bloc are largely ex-students who had previously studied in the western democratic countries on student visas. Even today, students in Iran are far more democratic leaning than the mullahs running that country. One has to wonder exactly whom a ban on student visa would hurt, and who will benefit. Private sector trade, cultural and scholarstic exchange are some of the most effective ways that the US can influence the rest of the world without costing tax dollars. Without the private sector exchanges like trade and student visas, what’s left between the US and regimes like that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be purely of government and military nature . . . the sort of exchange that often leads to “blowbacks.”
Overall, the student visa issue conveys a distinct feeling of barking up the wrong tree. . . that’s part and parcel of what made the ad unfortunate.
And initiate aggression against people not within the state - No, one can not work within the state and claim oneself a libertarian.
as i understand it, the whole immigration problem revolves around how to handle two problems given the existence of a state, namely that of minimizing forced exclusion and at the same time minimizing forced integration. in a world of private property these problems would never arise. but once you have the state present they come up. the problem of forced integration arises largely because of the presence of publicly-owned land. in fact it is how they view the problem of publicly owned land that differntiates the stances of prof.block and prof.hoppe on this issue. the key question to be answered is - how will the state ensure that it will minimize forced integration by regulating entry into publicly-owned, taxpayer funded land and yet also ensure that it will minimize excluding people forcefully. CAN that state do it?..well, its the state…what more is to be said?
So no one running for public office can be a libertarian (since they are obviously trying to work within the state), yet prominent Canadian libertarians are afraid Ron will destroy the movement? Shouldn’t you hardliners just ignore all political races, since there is no hope that anyone working within the system can improve it? btw, why does the Libertarian party exist, if it’s by definition full of a bunch of statist non-libertarians?
Also, I don’t believe I’ve heard Ron call himself a libertarian during this race. He describes himself more often as a constitutionalist. It’s, of course, the media that keep trying to paint him as a big L Libertarian, because that characterization is seen as more fringe and extreme (go figure) than a Republican constitutionalist who wants to keep government off Americans’ backs.
That makes me wonder: in your mind, what is the end-game? Does the political system collapse on itself due to a financial crisis that makes its failings apparent…or due to mass confusion after a calamity? Or do the politicians just give up one day and say sorry, you libertarians are right…we hereby cede power to the people to run your lives as you see fit? I’m having trouble picturing a scenario (besides getting Paul elected) that moves toward the libertarian ideal, and doesn’t involve some giant crisis that exposes the weaknesses of the system, probably paving the way at least in the short term for massive increases in government aggression. Are people magically going to stop trusting government one day? In either case don’t libertarians need visible politicians educating the general public as to the real cause of their problems? Isn’t there a history of government-caused calamities used as excuses to increase government, so won’t any potential void be filled by the same perpetrators who got us into this mess (unless the public somehow put 2 and 2 together)?
“That makes me wonder: in your mind, what is the end-game?”
The anarchist, to be true to his creed, must be devoted to the permanent levelling of society. Even in an anarcho-capitalist world, people will naturally coalesce around the pre-state institutions of Faith and Tribe and form communities of shared values with a uniform rule of law. Children will be born into this regime and sojourners will be subject to it or evicted as undesirables. Since this puts the anarchist back where he started, he must join with his ideological cousins the Marxists and set himself to the task of permanently levelling organic society.
Jim, I understand and identify with a lot of your points, and don’t necessarily feel like securing the border or limiting student visas to certain countries would be all that cost-effective in protecting us (relative to invading Iraq, I do, but not in absolute terms). But understand that it’s hard enough to get the Republican nomination when you say you want to withdraw from Iraq, kill the dept of education and the dept of energy, end the federal war on drugs, stop giving foreign aid to Isreal as well as her neighbors (Antisemite!), leave airport/plane security to the private sector, end our UN membership, close down foreign bases across the world, move toward a sounder money system, etc…and not have SOME answer to the question: how are you going to protect this country from foreign threats (terrorism)? At the very least that’s what the federal government is here for (if anything), and Ron’s plan on balance intrudes into individuals’ lives far less so than ANY other candidate’s platform. With any other candidate we’ll be taking 50 steps in the wrong direction for every 1 step in the right one…even if you believe the border/visa part of Ron’s platform is a step in the wrong direction, he’s still taking 50 in the right direction for every one that doesn’t conform to the libertarian ideal.
“even if you believe the border/visa part of Ron’s platform is a step in the wrong direction, he’s still taking 50 in the right direction for every one that doesn’t conform to the libertarian ideal.”
Not to mention that enforcing the borders ain’t exactly depriving us of any new Ron Paul voters. I’ll change my position when anybody can post pictures of Third World immigrants crossing the Rio Grande with their copies of Human Action held aloft to keep them dry.
Yea, you’re gaining more Ron Paul voters, and turning the libertarian movement into a paleoconservative bandwagon in the process. It’s getting to the point where I have to debate with “buy American products only” people in LIBERTARIAN forums.
I’m still perplexed why this criteria of what books they read is brought up. It’s downright silly and irrelevant, and vaguely reminds me of the old commie-hunting (got a copy of the manifesto? treason! you’re under arrest!). And It’s not as if the bulk of anti-immigrationists are clutching copies of “Human Action” either. More like Pat Buchannan books.
I’ll change my position when anybody can post pictures of anti-immigrationists clutching copies of “No Treason: Constitution of No Authority”. Until then, I will see them as mostly a bunch of protectionists, unionists, nationalists, racists and neo-nazis. And maybe a few libertarians with a major case of cognitive dissonance and confusion.
I forgot how dreadfully unsubtle anarcho-capitalist students are. The point I was trying to make that did not make it through the osseous matter surrounding your cerebrum is that we are importing social democrats, in addition to our homegrown social democrats, making the goal of a libertarian society even more remote. If, on the other hand, they were clamoring for directions to the Mises Institute as opposed to DFCS, I might reconsider my position. The image of immigrants pouring over the border with copies of Human Action is metaphorical. That’s m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r-i-c-a-l. To put it another way, when the immigrants take to the street demanding the gold standard and an end to the income tax instead of marching for civil rights and expansion of the EIC, I’ll be pro-immigrant.
I bet you are real fun at parties.
Of course, the anti-immigrants propose to use social democracy to their advantage, and propose measures or means that some if not many social democrats would applaud, as a solution. In other words, you’re adding to the numbers of the social democrats too. Of course, if your criteria for creating a libertarian society has to do with socially engineering a society of people with the “correct” personal preferences by excluding those who don’t “qualify”, we are going by two different definitions of what such a society entails.
Are the bulk of anti-immigrationists doing this either? Are they a crowd that generally favors economic freedom? Hardly.
To put it another way, when the bulk of anti-immigrationists take to the streets demanding free trade and an end to the drug war, instead of marching for tax-funded fences and stronger police powers, I’ll start to reconsider my image of them. Until then, I will generally see them as a part of a broad protectionist and nationalist movement that wants more prisons built.
You need to attack the premises rather than just tediously recycling statements and ad hominem (not that being called racist, etc., is worth much as an insult these days). Presumably, you are too busy throwing off the shackles of the state from your dorm room to bother constructing a syllogism.
I’ve already spent a good deal of time in this thread debunking the premises of anti-immigrationists. The response mostly consisted of me being called a utopian idealist, rather then any valid counter-arguement. There were even those who aknowledged the “theoretical validity” of my arguements, but then said that we have to be pragmatic right now for reasons X, Y and Z. I have held back bringing up racism until this point, and it was listed as only one out of many sentiments behind anti-immigrationism. But when I see people basically painting the most dreary picture possible of Mexican and “3rd world” immigrants, you damn well bet that I am going to have a bit of a suspicion that some racism is at play.
“. Of course, if your criteria for creating a libertarian society has to do with socially engineering a society of people with the “correct” personal preferences by excluding those who don’t “qualify”, we are going by two different definitions of what such a society entails.”
BTW, people exercise such preferences in their associations all the time, wherever they can get away with it or the law does not prohibit them from doing so. In an anarcho-capitalist society, vagrants and trespassers will have to pay for the privilege of sojourning or be escorted to the town limits and told to keep walking. People will be free to build their own communities with membership qualified by whatever criteria they desire.
Given the natural discrimination that is actually the very essence of property rights, I doubt most anarcho-capitalists really want an anarcho-capitalist society at all.
Just because of the fact, which I have granted already, that a private owner is free to discriminate/exclude, it by no means follows that this is how they will or must act in a free society, nor does it follow that we should use the state in this manner in the present as if it were a private owner. Nor does this line of arguement aknowledge the plethora of incentives towards association in a free society that would render cultural separatism economically suicidal in the long-run.
Yes, people will be free to form their own comunities with membership qualified by whatever criteria they desire - and those who have draconian qualifications will be outcompeted and will eventually find their communities poor and abandoned because they have essentially restricted their own consumer base to the point of economic suicide. A monocentric society is not possible, or sustainable, in an atmosphere of free association. Big time discriminators eventually lose out in a free market.
The idea that in a private property society, immigration ceases to exist and the climate will be one of extreme ethnic and/or cultural separatism, is absolutely ridiculous. Citezenship in the contemporary sense ceases to exist, yes. Incentives towards integration and social cooperation between vastly differing groups of people most certainly do not dissapear. If anything, they intensify. Territorial mobility, if anything, would likely be easier, not harder, because there no longer is a territorial monopoly.
On the contrary, the historical observation is that multi-ethnic empires are held together by force, and eventually succumb to the centrifugal forces of loyalty to the pre-state institutions of Faith and Tribe. Eventually, all multi-ethnic empires devolve into their constituent nations. This is the trend from the former USSR to the UK to Belgium to Iraq, Somalia, etc. To airily proclaim that things will be different under anarcho-capitalism is to ignore human nature. At this point, the anarcho-capitalist joins arms with his Marxist soulmates to proclaim the New Anarchist Man, free of such old-fashioned notions.
Free trade and segregation are perfectly compatible in the absence of the civil rights laws that take away everyone’s safe harbors.
Nonsense. I propose no such “new man”, I do not propose any change in human nature at all. The simple fact of the matter is that history is an endless story of intermingling between ethnicities and migrations between territories. The human race has been interbreeding forever and will continue to do so, and this will intensify over time. All human beings are “muts” on some level. There is no such thing as a culturally pure community. All societies are “multi-cultural” to some degree. On the contrary of your claims, I would argue that a completely monocentric society cannot be held together without force, without essentially stopping people on the margin from associating with “the other guys” and letting “the other guys” in. Someone in your “pure” community WILL associated with, hire, sell homes to “them there other guys”, and there is nothing you can legitimately do to stop them.
If voluntary “multiculturalism” is an impossibility to you, then I really don’t think you understand the pluralist implications of free association. That you seem to think that separatism and segregation is some inevitable law of nature frankly baffles me, because the market itself was showing a trend towards integration long before the civil rights laws came along. Yes, you can theoretically have an ethnically pure community in a free market. But it most certainly will not stay that way, it certainly is not sustainable in the absence of force, it certainly is not economically feasable in the long run (by comparative advantage alone). When I see people like you essentially argueing for ethnic separatism in an anarchy, you can’t really complain when I do start to pull out the “race card”, because you are showing what your true intentions are afterall, and it has nothing to do with opposing the welfare state.
Keep in mind that you are in fact the one proposing a sort of monopolistic or monocentric model for society here, trying to proclaim it as some natural occurance under freedom, while my view is that freedom has pluralist implications. You seem to equate decentralization to segregation, while I equate it to a lack of monocentrism (which, by default, means people are not forced into uniform groups) and therefore pluralism. Yes, people are free to not associate, but this by no means equates to it always being in their rational self-interest to. It by no means spells out a world in which everyone “sticks to their own kind” in some hermetically sealed manner. It by no means spells out a world in which I cannot have next door neighbors of different ethnicities, religions and personal preferences.
Private property anarchism will allow as much ‘immigration’ (a statist concept - better to say ‘movement’) as is desired by individuals in given societies. To the extent that disassociation is desirable, it will dominate. We agree on that much. Again, though, closed borders have the opposite effect of open ones - of forced disassociation. Not even closed border libertarians like Hoppe would support this (Hoppe outlines another scheme in DTGTF, basically requiring someone - like an employer - to vouch for the immigrant in question IIRC.)
We are? Maybe, I’ve noticed we’re not the most diplomatic lot generally speaking.
Sure, I don’t disagree with this at all. To the extent that people want to disassociate, it will occur. And “movement” or “migration” would indeed be a better term. However, I think that, particularly on a large scale and over a considerable period of time, segregation is counterproductive and suicidal to those who are trying to hermetically seal themselves off from others. While it is absolutely true that people are free to discriminate as they please in a private property society, they will still have many incentives to associate with “undesirables” on some level.
A completely segregated world seems like an impossibility to me because people on the margin are going to break up the monocentrism and it’s simply a self-defeating buisiness practise to be turning down large swaths of potential customers like that. I need not exactly be best friends or in love with someone to live close to them, do buisiness with them and trade directly. There is no logical reason that I can think of for not buying, selling, hiring and living next to people just because the people I have to deal with are from a different ethnicity or religion or what have you.