Sad & Disappointed: Immigration
It is clear from the recent discussions that many people on this forum do not understand or care about freedom when it is their pet issue and are clearly not ready for a Gulch. The anti-reason, anti-objectivist positions followed three main threads.
1. Freedom: It is clear that many people do not understand that freedom is a set of ethical principles that apply to all people. It is clear that many of the people here seem to think their rights come from their government or being American. One absurd position being proposed by many was that somehow limiting someone’s right to travel is not limiting their freedom. Then we find the collectivist argument that government is nothing but a bunch of private people getting together and setting rules. These same people fail to recognize that this is exactly the argument for the welfare state. It also follows from these arguments that Kansas or some other state could stop people from other states from entering and in fact this is the goal of these people. Or we should be allowed to get together and agree to stone you to death, or sacrifice virgins.
Some people made the collectivist argument that somehow jobs are owned by the collective – this tribalist mentality is so despicable that I would support removing from the gulch anyone who made the argument twice.
What is particularly sad is when given a pro-freedom solution to immigration issues a number of people rejected it. The pro-freedom solution starts with something anyone who is allowed in the gulch should support, which is the elimination of welfare of all kinds including social security (overtime) and medicare. Next, it would eliminate all drug laws including the FDA. It would also of course enforce private property rights and be serious about crime. These changes would eliminate any legitimate concerns with immigrants entering the United States.
2. Eugenics/racism: It is amazing the number of people who tried to support their anti-freedom stance with the variations of the pseudo-science of eugenics. This puts them in the wonderful company of freedom lovers such Southern slave owners, racists more generally, the socialists of England in the early 1900s or earlier, Nazi Germany, and none other than Margaret Sanger
3. Logic: The opposite of the right to travel freely is imprisonment, no matter how big the prison or that sometimes the guards allow you outside or inside the walls. The inability to follow simple logic in this discussion was amazing. On the more innocent side was confusing immigration with citizenship. The two are not the same. Many people seemed to think that the requirement for IDs at the borders would not logically lead to IDs every time you travel. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue and yes they said you could be required to show ID for just walking down the street. That the need to monitor people at the border, will not lead to needing to monitor people everywhere. Oops that has already happened. That the need to monitor for terrorists will not mean the need to monitor everyone – again that has already happened. You cannot escape the logic of your positions. Require IDs for everyone else but not you. Monitoring for terrorists, but not you. Assuming other people are guilty until found innocent, but not you.
But what was perhaps the most chilling statement I heard was that we had to be practical, we had to deal with reality. Does this remind you of any conversation in Atlas Shrugged? The clear point of this statement is that being practical means abandoning reason, logic, and principles.
It was a VERY SAD week in the Gulch.
1. Freedom: It is clear that many people do not understand that freedom is a set of ethical principles that apply to all people. It is clear that many of the people here seem to think their rights come from their government or being American. One absurd position being proposed by many was that somehow limiting someone’s right to travel is not limiting their freedom. Then we find the collectivist argument that government is nothing but a bunch of private people getting together and setting rules. These same people fail to recognize that this is exactly the argument for the welfare state. It also follows from these arguments that Kansas or some other state could stop people from other states from entering and in fact this is the goal of these people. Or we should be allowed to get together and agree to stone you to death, or sacrifice virgins.
Some people made the collectivist argument that somehow jobs are owned by the collective – this tribalist mentality is so despicable that I would support removing from the gulch anyone who made the argument twice.
What is particularly sad is when given a pro-freedom solution to immigration issues a number of people rejected it. The pro-freedom solution starts with something anyone who is allowed in the gulch should support, which is the elimination of welfare of all kinds including social security (overtime) and medicare. Next, it would eliminate all drug laws including the FDA. It would also of course enforce private property rights and be serious about crime. These changes would eliminate any legitimate concerns with immigrants entering the United States.
2. Eugenics/racism: It is amazing the number of people who tried to support their anti-freedom stance with the variations of the pseudo-science of eugenics. This puts them in the wonderful company of freedom lovers such Southern slave owners, racists more generally, the socialists of England in the early 1900s or earlier, Nazi Germany, and none other than Margaret Sanger
3. Logic: The opposite of the right to travel freely is imprisonment, no matter how big the prison or that sometimes the guards allow you outside or inside the walls. The inability to follow simple logic in this discussion was amazing. On the more innocent side was confusing immigration with citizenship. The two are not the same. Many people seemed to think that the requirement for IDs at the borders would not logically lead to IDs every time you travel. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue and yes they said you could be required to show ID for just walking down the street. That the need to monitor people at the border, will not lead to needing to monitor people everywhere. Oops that has already happened. That the need to monitor for terrorists will not mean the need to monitor everyone – again that has already happened. You cannot escape the logic of your positions. Require IDs for everyone else but not you. Monitoring for terrorists, but not you. Assuming other people are guilty until found innocent, but not you.
But what was perhaps the most chilling statement I heard was that we had to be practical, we had to deal with reality. Does this remind you of any conversation in Atlas Shrugged? The clear point of this statement is that being practical means abandoning reason, logic, and principles.
It was a VERY SAD week in the Gulch.
I had a conversation with a member of my church over the weekend (We went target shooting on Saturday with a group of about 16 couples and there kids) and in that conversation the subject of immigration came up. The guy the conversation started with has a fairly conservative family in all ways but in social programs. IE he gets the need for guns and the fact that we should not regulate things, but sees welfare as good.
I stated we do not have a immigration problem.
I got rather blank looks from him and grabbed the attention of everyone adult there. As the conversation continued no one was shooting and everyone was listing to the two of us.
I asked, for 150 years we let people in with very little to no documentation. It was not a problem so you have to ask what has changed, the answer will help to find the root problem.
As we talked the point of terrorist being a new thing came up. I asked about the Barbary pirates of Thomas Jefferson's time. They were Muslim extremists who were attempting to use harassment of the shipping lanes as a means to bring the west down. Not new, in fact very old as old as the US.
Eventually the conversation came around to things like civil rights, welfare, social security.... and then the discussion got very interesting and nearly every adult who was there was participating.
At the end when they were getting quite and thinking about the impact of welfare on immigration I said, when you guys have mulled the impact of welfare on immigration I have another thought, that maybe we can discuss another time.
Think about the eventual end of a society willing initiate the kind of force welfare requires a government to initiate and where does the creep of such a system lead us to?
After that we went back to shooting targets. So far no one there has reached out to talk more but I am hoping that a few will.
This is the only effective weapon we have short of rebellion and that has likely bad outcome based on how often it has provided a worse government than rebellion has removed. If enough people learn and will act we can change what is to something better than what ever was, but more people have to understand it, understand the damage of what we are doing and learn the root cause of problems. Immigration is great subject to start that learning process on.
-XR
The root problem is we are not a free state any longer and have not been for a long time.
I do think the only way to fix immigration is to return to principles of freedom (rule of law based on constitution and Natural Law for all, true capitalism...) I also agree it wont happen in this country without a revolution taking place.
The only place I disagree is with timeline. The country contracted cancer when we decided that states were no longer a higher authority than federal government. The civil war was a war between having individual slaves to individuals or having a group of slaves to governments. By virtue of the federal government being greater then (and therefor in control of) states, it also meant that the people were now the property of the state.
It took till 1890 and Sherman's law to start to see the cancer take form and by 1913 it was very evident. John D. was told in 1911 that he did not own his business nor did he have a right to be so successful. That was a big falling point and much like Atlas had he done then what Hank did at his trial, we would live in a different world.
Anyway thanks for the post.
I think the hang up in my mind has been the concept that some land is just not owned by anyone. It seems to me that means it is free for someone to simply claim ownership. I'm learning from other threads the distinction between ownership of land, versus mere control over land. So the USA controls the Grand Canyon (and most roads, etc.), but nobody owns it in any technical sense.
I'm still not sure if these "public lands" are a good idea. Should they all be privatized? And if so, how? If not, should they be preserved or increased? And how?
As for all men or free or none are, you are correct. Right now no person is truly free. That is precisely why I have said that the better answers are either to shrug individually or to start our own physical Gulch.
You don't want anyone else on your property, put up a sign on your property, don't assume that everyone else feels the same.
Thus I am going to turn your argument on its head. Trying to eliminate the welfare system by itself is a kind of "pragmatic solution". A truly Objectivist approach would be to start Atlantis from scratch.
It bothers me that we have to wait for someone to violate the rights of another (sometimes causing loss of life) before we can penalize them. Even more on a national scale. But I know the alternative leads to a militarized police state that destroys liberty. Still, is there any place for laws that penalize reckless endangerment, or to take action upon discovery of evidence of a plot to violate rights?
But even granting that liberty should not be restrained unless someone's rights are being violated, wouldn't you affirm that we shouldn't allow criminals wanted by the law to roam freely through our country? Yet what will prevent foreign criminals from doing that if we don't know the people immigrating here?
A counter argument that says the government will always steal from its people is not a counter argument. It simply says we are doomed because of the bad government.
I really should not go here, but....
If a wall is built, and you can come here to run drugs to make money or be killed at home. Come here to collect welfare or starve at home people will come for those reasons.
All the wall will have done is cost millions and giving the illusory faking of reality that we are economically better off because people are being employed. It will look like the economy is growing, and the real cost will be, since they will pay for it with newly printed money, a reduction in the value of every dollar every other person makes at legitimate productive jobs. Even more criminal at the cost of billions in buying power from money people have spent a life time saving for their later years.
Building a wall to keep them out is not only a joke for immigration controls but a high crime against the people of the USA in the area of economics.
The true purpose of the immigration push is to create a "growing economy" with no real growth, but inflationary growth. This in effect increases taxation as we have a graduated income tax without having to pass a bill. There is no other reason to do it the way we are.
If we really want to protect the boarder form immigrants, drug dealers and terror inflicting assess it is not hard. Write down a single one paragraph piece of regulation.
Bill 666 Regulation Reform
Article 1:
Any border patrol agent will not be put under review for shooting and killing anyone not going over the border at a designated check point.
Next an order from whomever is over the boarder rangers and a very public and very well propagated message. Shoot to kill, if you fail to kill shot again.
When you create an environment of control, the only thing you can watch a boarder with is force and control. It would also happen to cost a few hundred a year for the bullets. To think that anything else will work in an environment of force and control is simply not rational thought.
Edit: I need to clarify that I am not for the shooting method. I am stating that is the only way to control the boarder under the current control that is exercised by our government, it would have to come to that to control the boarder. I am for removing the controls and theft which would be resolving the root problem.
Pragmatism does not work.
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