A border wall is not anti-Objectivist, nor are other reasonable limitations on or
certain requirements placed upon people coming and going across the border.
One of the federal government’s primary responsibilities is protecting citizens
from threats beyond our borders. Threats are not limited to military incursions.
How could the federal government fulfill that obligation yet not be allowed to
limit who crosses the border?

Good question. This recent debate has had me thinking that without control of a border there is no sovereignty. Without borders, why even have nations? Let's just let it become one big swirling mess of humanity. (Sarcasm, mixed with reality...)

I think that the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen should be earned and made available only after someone has proven himself worthy. This includes not only immigrants, but also people born in the states united. Then one should have the option to decide for himself if he wants to be a citizen or to be a free sovereign that voluntarily selects and pays for the services he receives from government without any ability to vote or responsibility to serve the government (as a juror, for example.)

I believe Ayn Rand said protection of borders was a legitimate function of government.

Yes...but also, we all must observe that most of the worlds population, never mind their governments, Do Not Respect the Property of others. We can never have an open border society until they do...

No, it's not anti-Objectivist. In fact just the opposite. The current zero borders (except for Israel) advocacy of ARI, Brook and Binswanger is not consistent with the continuation of the United States as a free country and is not based in fact.

This is worth reading in its entirety even though it's quite long.

https://objectivedissent.org/2017/01/...

I think it is reasonable. Criminals should be kept out. But people that come and respect reasonable laws and don't mooch are welcome.

James and Orren, and Welsey would have followed the time honored tradition of taking the Gulch by force of arms or taxing the Gulchers into submission and slavery.

The age old question of whether an individual or group of individuals can claim a patch of ground as theirs and how much ground and by what warrant are they able to invite in, or, exclude others from crossing their borders remains unanswered.

Ayn Rand never thought of Galt's Gulch as a possible existent to my knowledge.

I have to take exception to your phrase "they hadn't committed a crime". The things they did to their fellow man may not have been illegal, but they were certainly crimes.

Also, since Galt's Gulch was private land, borders were absolutely viable in this instance.

If you mean, is selective admission to a nation-state anti-Objectivist, the answer is no. Nothing in Objectivism declares it moral or rational to invite all comers, nor even to grant automatic citizenship, or even lawful residency, by birth. Emmerich de Vattel did describe that category of lawful residents who were without doubt "naturally born" to their status in one country. But he did not arrive at that description by way of Rand (whom he obviously ante-dated) nor even, as far as I know, by way of Aristotle. (If he derived his definition from Plato's Republic or Laws, that's fine--but Aristotle, and only Aristotle, is the source of "High Objectivism," if you will.)

For that matter, the Committee of Safety--the Triumvirs--never made or enforced any rule governing the residency of children beyond any "age of decision-making." That's because it never came up. For within twelve years the "code of the looters" collapsed and the Gulch went from hide-away to capital city in a trice. But I have no doubt that every child would have faced a Day of Reckoning, whereon he must take the Oath, or leave, had the collapse taken longer than a generation.

No. And a border wall is plain common sense.

If we recognize that the very first border of any consequence is the border of our own bodies, do we not consider violation of it to be a cardinal offense? Absolutely. There is a delineation point between one object and the next which must be identified and respected because those lines indicate zones of control aka property rights. If we first acknowledge that we have the right to own ourselves, we make the claim that we have primary rights over the substance in our persons. That right is sacrosanct because all other rights flow from it. So too with a nation's borders: those who are citizens have the penultimate control over who is allowed entry into this nation and for what reason. Thus control of a nation's borders is no different than control of one's own skin.

Now can one argue that because there are multiple claims of ownership upon a nation's borders that control is shared? Absolutely, which is why representative government then is delegated the power over such matters - so that a single body can set policy as agents for the rest. But the argument that since border control is shared that it means that there can be no control is simply belied by the reality of borders in the first place. To argue for open borders is to deny the rights of ownership and control derived from citizenship.

What is the justification for the border wall? That it keeps out illegal immigrants who cost the American taxpayer or job seeker. Or, that it keeps out terror cells.

The first part appears egoist.. but is it? Do highly regulated passages between the United States and Mexico yield a net positive income?

cost of wall + cost of international enforcement - cost of social services - cost of national enforcement = net income

net income + net tariff income = net resultant income

I am not sure anyone can plug in those numbers with exceptional accuracy, but perhaps it would be fun to guess.

So let's address the terror cells. This is not the main issue. The USA is not a closed system, and will never be a closed system. To eliminate terrorism, you have to cut the head of the snake. This means ruining those nations that support terror financially and ideologically.

The Gulch was private property, not a country or a nation or a gov't.

What Abaco says with irony, I say seriously. We're already becoming one big swirling mess of humanity. That creates huge value and opportunity. It's hard to stop even if we wanted to.

I agree with President Trump's idea, though, that we should enforce the laws on the books. It's absurd that we have an underclass of 15 million people living here under the radar, illegally. I don't know if a physical wall is the best method. It's mainly a symbolic way to assert we're going to take our laws seriously. I hope it encourages a national debate on what the law should be and that leads to radically more permissive laws on trade and immigration.

A physical wall is not anti-objectivist, but it is stupid. A virtual wall is far more effective and less expensive. Towers with IR, visual and radar work beautifully. Microwave is an incredible, non-lethal deterrent.

Certain neighbors have untrained dogs and they let them roam the neighborhood. Those persons need a fence, and the purpose is to keep things in as well as out which sometimes is lost on anti-wall people. For example, fleeing criminals.

...and a border of "sense of life"....and a border of those who produce and those that are anti-life, reason, and liberty...