Comments on Pro Libertate: Illegal Immigration, Past and Present: An Exercise in Thinking Out Loud

Hello Mr. Grigg! Love reading your observations. ...

2007-09-04T19:17:00.000-06:00

Hello Mr. Grigg! Love reading your observations. On the immigration issue, I too was in a flux as well. However, Jacob Hornberger made a point to me, that was made to him by Sheldon Richman. The point is simply this. "Why is it the public sector complains about too many customers?"
Also, if indeed, we lived in a true free society, this wouldn't be a problem. Most, if not all property, would be in private hands.
In order for immigrants to come here, they would have to have permission to use or enter their property. Since the government "owns" the border, they haven't really showed the incentive to enforce their own property rights.

Seems to me, and my Cherokee ancestors, that this ...

2007-09-01T09:06:00.000-06:00

Seems to me, and my Cherokee ancestors, that this is simply a case of what goes around comes around. If one does not wish to reap the whirlwind, then don't sow the wind.

I usually agree with most of your posts but this o...

2007-09-01T01:55:00.000-06:00

I usually agree with most of your posts but this one is leaving the sound ideas of minarchism and going into fantastic idealism of globalist anarchism.

Quote: "The logic of Burnham's observation is that wherever prohibitionist policies are enforced, criminal behavior -- including occasional violence to persons and property -- will result."

But this is a false correlation equals causation statement. The cause of the violation of persons and property is not caused by a certain law but the criminal nature of people who are more than happy to violate the "rights" of others to get what they want.

Quote: "If this is true of immigration from Mexico, then the way to reduce the violence would be to end the relevant prohibition."

And this is false because the violence is inherent to the corrupt culture of Mexico.

Quote: "One way to end the siege of ranch properties along the southern border would be to announce that we would accept all of the immigrants Mexico is willing to send our way."

Of course this would act as psychological reinforcement for every other criminal, smugger, and terrorist telling them that if you just continue your criminal activities America will just cave in and essentially let the criminal elements decide what should be our policy toward them. This of course is not unlike what Mexico and other third world countries are today.

Quote "Recent studies of incarceration rates for immigrants and native Americans demonstrate that immigrants are not the source of a significant spike in crime; in fact, the findings suggest that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are native-born citizens."

But such studies include the anchor babies and child born here of legal residents as part of the "native-born" population and thus their higher than-average crime rate is counted as part of the "native" crime rate. The only real measure of the effects of illegal aliens on the crime rate is to measure the changing demographics in the crime rate.

Quote: "Why make the immigrants the issue, as opposed to the welfare programs themselves?"

Because the excess poor immigrants are what are straining the system and people fear real instability in a system more than a theoretically flawed system itself.

Quote: "As Sheldon Richman points out, one would expect conservatives to cite immigrant welfare services in order "to convince the American people to dump the welfare state [by showing them] it is financially unsustainable."

Which is a highly theoretical case and will lose in public debate because it can't be fit into a sound bite whereas one can say "immigrants are sucking us dry" with five words.

Quote: "The first of which is that my friend is assuming that quasi-totalitarian laws of this sort would eventually be enacted nation-wide; otherwise immigrants would simply migrate to states where such laws don't exist."

Which is false because local communities would immediately pass laws against the invaders as several towns have already attempted to this but the federal government stopped them from having local enforcement. State and local enforcement would work but the federal government doesn't want accountable local governments to interfere with their plans for globalization.

Quote: "The other problem is that this approach would actually expand the size and expense of the welfare state, since it would leave the existing structure intact while using access to it as an incentive for additional legal immigration."

The enforcement of criminal statutes against criminal invaders would reduce the welfare state not increase it. Allowing unlimited third worlders from socialist and totalitarian countries into the country is the surest have complete socialist totalitarianism in our country ASAP which why the Feds keep pushing "Immigration Reform."

The argument for enforcement is very simple and irrefutable for those who love liberty. If the American People are the sovereigns then the land within the borders of the United States belongs to them and not anyone else. Therefore it is the absolute right of the American people have their elected officials enforce whatever immigration laws they have enacted through their representative government. And if the American people do not have this right then they are not sovereign and are therefore NOT FREE.

Quote from jorge: "By crossing the line (I contend imaginary) between the US and Mexico, whose rights have been violated?"

The right of people to rule by law as sovereigns of their own country.

Now you might argue that I am making a collectivist argument about the American People being sovereigns over the land within the national borders but I contend that there is nothing more collectivist than to deny national borders.

If the only land that can have it borders defended is on privately owned land then all land belonging to the state is defunct in a national sense and therefore belongs to everyone in the global sense and because such land belongs "the world" it therefore what ever laws that are made must apply all the people in the world and every government of every people have the right to over-rule /rule-over any other government and any other people i.e. total collectivist world government.

So once against the libertarian emphasis on "individual rights" instead of the real obligations of the individual leads to collectivist rule instead in individual freedom.

Read Thomas Fleming's "The Morality of Everyday Life" for a further discussion of rights, obligations, and freedoms.

The Sioux lost their liberty and political independence because the American Colonists refused to respect Sioux laws, Sioux traditions, and Sioux national property and the American people will lose their liberty and political independence because the Mexican invaders refuse to respect our laws, our traditions, our national property, and our federal government refuses to respect their obligations to the American people and deal with these criminal trespassers.

TAYLOR said... liberranter, Try "fascism." T...

2007-08-31T12:53:00.000-06:00

TAYLOR said...

liberranter,

Try "fascism."

Thanks, Taylor. How on earth did I manage to miss that one?

I searched the M-W Online Dictionary for an "academic" definition of the term, yet M-W provides a grossly inadequate and misleading definition:

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

"Pronunciation:
\ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date:
1921

1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control"

The M-W definition quoted above seems much more like the generic definition of totalitarianism, as "fascism" relies heavily on leveraging the interests of the corporate/industrial class to bolster the machinery of the totalitarian state rather than relying on the muscle of agents of the State acting on their own.

liberranter,Try "fascism."

2007-08-30T20:57:00.000-06:00

liberranter,

Try "fascism."

... an authoritarian corporatist state supported b...

2007-08-30T19:52:00.000-06:00

... an authoritarian corporatist state supported by a degenerate mass democracy.

There must be a term that describes precisely such a system. "Oligarchy" and "plutocracy" certainly don't fit and "dictatorship of the proletariat" is accurate only where the final half of the system description is concerned. I'm at at a loss. Any suggestions? If the term I'm looking for is already in the political science lexicon, please enlighten me.

Great stuff, Will.

2007-08-30T17:27:00.000-06:00

Great stuff, Will.

Immigration laws violate the principles of Christi...

2007-08-30T16:11:00.000-06:00

Immigration laws violate the principles of Christianity and capitalism. I discuss the principles of Christianity here, and George Reisman discusses capitalism in his wonderful treatise, Capitalism, excerpts of which are at the link above.

"Wherever there's a prohibition, there's a bootleg...

2007-08-30T15:57:00.000-06:00

"Wherever there's a prohibition, there's a bootlegger" -- James Burnham, "Burnham's Laws," No. 5.

The question I pose is: Should we perceive such crimes as the unique product of illegal immigration, or as an illustration of the universal truth of Burnham's Fifth Law (see above)?

While I certainly sympathize with your mind being "in flux" over various, albeit critical (IMO), matters, such as illegal immigration, this cronic "open-mindedness" among many of us, perhaps most of us, today in America about critical matters, not mundane, means I do disagree vehemently with this statement of yours:

This doesn't mean I think our nation should dissolve itself as an act of penance for the sins of our forebears.

I believe we ALL, to varying degrees, are so flummoxed on so many critical matters - not just immigration or the welfare state but a slew of other critical matters, affecting the entire societal structure and cohesion that perhaps it'd be best if it did dissolve.

As your mind is in flux over the matter of illegal immigration, I can likewise say for a certainty these days that my mind is certainly in flux over whether the Founders were mistaken with founding this quintessential farrago we call the "United States." What the heck is "united" about them? Down with it, already.

Seriously, when it requires literally pages of wily prose to explain one's position on any critical issue and afterwards their mind still remain "in flux" on that matter, that's NOT a good sign :(. Why don't we as humans simply go retrograde? Simply dissolve the nation-state entirely and reduce ourselves to the smallest possible human social unit: the family (or clan, perhaps)?

I keep hearing/reading people cry out for freedom and liberty, but those are meaningless without some context. What KIND of "freedom" are people crying out for?

The logic of Burnham's observation is that wherever prohibitionist policies are enforced, criminal behavior -- including occasional violence to persons and property -- will result. If this is true of immigration from Mexico, then the way to reduce the violence would be to end the relevant prohibition. One way to end the siege of ranch properties along the southern border would be to announce that we would accept all of the immigrants Mexico is willing to send our way. This would put the Coyotes out of business immediately.

Who cares about the Coyotes? I'm more concerned with this issue because of the long-term cultural implications. Yes, ending the welfare system for ALL would certainly put a huge dent in the illegal alien problem to be sure, but let's not forget that true welfare, as opposed to the ear-wilting, tired definition applied to the po' living in projects, is well ingrained throughout the culture today up and down the socio-economic stratum. Many folk, in varying degrees of appetite only, from the ghetto/barrio set to the Palm Beach set are sucking from the taxpayer teet.

Are you advocating the idea that since some people are wont to disobey ANY prohibition (I'm not addressing here whether said prohibition is sensible, righteous, or constitutional. That's another matter entirely), that said prohibition (LAW) should simply be abolished? Do I understand you correctly here? Correct me if I'm wrong, Will, but I gathered from your above statements I quoted that you are in essence sayin' that people basically cannot self-govern and have no self-control. Do you not ever question or examine instead why criminal behavior will result when a prohibition is in effect? After all, children will surely disobey a prohibition by parents, but I've not heard anyone say that parents should dispense with all prohibitions just because disobedience will result.

By the way, if that's the case, I agree that people by and large are without self-restraint and self-control today, for whatever reason, in many areas of life. Nevertheless, it's a telltale recipe for government expansion to supply those restraints and controls in those areas. I'm not talking about right or wrong here, because the instituted external (government) restraints could be right, wrong, or neither, but that's irrevelant to the point here.

Keep in mind Will, as you peruse the cultural landscape daily, that the ONLY restraint keeping many otherwise rudderless people these days from committing violent acts (or any other act for that matter) against persons and/or property is EXTERNAL prohibitions, not self-imposed restraints or prohibitions.

Two problems with that assessment leap immediately...

2007-08-30T13:32:00.000-06:00

Two problems with that assessment leap immediately to mind. ... quasi-totalitarian laws of this sort would eventually be enacted nation-wide... The other problem is that this approach would actually expand the size and expense of the welfare state...

There is a third problem, Will --
especially for those of us who try to heed the Biblical warning to "Come out of her, My people...be not partakers of her plagues":

These explicitly fascist proscriptions on what used to be private property, and the private Right to contract, are an abomination to a free republic.

Some of us have come to the conclusion that the only response to an increasingly totalitarian regime is to "withdraw consent", as Jefferson noted in the Declaration.

Abominations of 'law' such as these -- which are clearly abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object...a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism -- destroy what is left of that right to private contract, by reducing it to a 'loophole'.

As you have noted, Will, this battle isn't about prohibiting "illegal aliens", it's about prohibiting free people from saying NO to tyranny in the only lawful non-violent way remaining.

While there is evidently no such thing as a "US Citizen" in the Law, attempts to treat everyone who chooses NOT to take that Mark have a single obvious goal.

And it's not a nation of Law, serving our true King.

Ludwig von Mises said something to the effect that...

2007-08-30T10:08:00.000-06:00

Ludwig von Mises said something to the effect that, if the general principles of private property are held in any area, that it would be peaceful. If we could convert the United States from the fascist state it's in now into a free market, private property society, then immigration of any kind would be inconsequential. The people bitching about not being able to get over here wouldn't have an excuse to bitch, and so forth.

Further, no invasion is possible in a country where everyone is able to arm himself to the extent of the military. If Indians had had guns, they wouldn't be on reservations right now. Likewise, if decent military weapons were legalized here, there would be no serious threat of an invading force, of any kind, being able to take the country.

THAT SAID:

The predicament we find ourselves in right now demands that we not further tax the system with more possible dependents. Immigration should stop until this country is stabilized - end welfare, etc. That must be the first step simply because it is the only reasonable step right now unless we want hordes of welfare dependent thugs pissed off about the fact that they stopped getting their check every month.

Right now, you're forced to pay for people. Let's stop people from being able to take your money: if that means less immigration, so be it. In reality, the real answer is to not have welfare at all.

On a side note: Anyone see Sam Antonio on CNN a few weeks ago, talking about this subject?

The voting criterion is key. The laws on what can ...

2007-08-29T23:18:00.000-06:00

The voting criterion is key. The laws on what can be voted on need to be changed. Or, give them the vote, but make it useless for them (and for everyone else for that matter) by making wealth transfers by the federal government illegal with no provision for it in any circumstance. Things would work out well for a while methinks.

Tom Bethell makes a lot of sense to me. Unfortunat...

2007-08-29T23:10:00.000-06:00

Tom Bethell makes a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, the "client constituency" mentality will not go away; so, nothing will change.

Will,Great post, and "mad props" to you for having...

2007-08-29T21:27:00.000-06:00

Will,

Great post, and "mad props" to you for having the self-confidence to admit you don't have an answer or definite opinion on every topic. We humans are fallible, are we not? You've got a lot of readers who value your opinion and it's nice to see you haven't ascended the mountain (Olympus) and find sitting with the gods too comfortable to have doubts like we normal folk. :)

I read your post with enthusiasm and would like to offer some things for your consideration on the topic. I have a personal opinion about this topic based on the principles of natural rights and natural justice, which I value highly. I know you value these things as well, so I'd recommend appealing to them while considering the following:

1. As Jorge mentioned in the first comment, immigration must be considered from a position of individual rights. In the case of immigrants, criminal or otherwise, violating the sanctity of private property, the owner would be correct to use any force necessary to repel the invaders if they do not leave his property voluntarily. Additionally, enforcing his property rights should be a cost he alone bears, or he along with other people who volunteer to bear the cost of guarding his property. However, one can not rightfully defend one's rightfully acquired private property by enlisting the aid of police or immigrations officials whose salaries come from tax money, a gross violation of private property rights to begin with.

When it comes to public property, however, there can be no just cause for using force against anyone crossing the imaginary boundaries of "the United States," federal, state, county or local. To say that public officials would be correct in using force against "trespassers" of this nature would be conceding the legitimacy of whichever government involved is making a claim to the territory. The question to ask in such a situation is, Why? Why is this government's authority and claim to sovereignty legitimate?

In other words, where did this collective derive its sovereign rights? Maybe there was a social contract... but who signed it? Pull out your copy of Spooner and page through again, see if you can square these concepts.

2. Along these lines I think is a related point that has to do with ethnic or ancestral "homelands" and the idea that certain land "belongs" to a person or group of people simply due to birthright. But such a claim doesn't make sense unless the property was acquired rightfully by the individual's or group of individuals' ancestors and bequeathed to the successor individual or individuals.

For instance, with the Indians, while it was undoubtedly atrocious the way they were dispossessed and massacred, it still doesn't quite seem correct to call any non-Indian settlement of this country a wave of "illegal immigration." Many Indians were nomadic, not "mixing their labor with the land" but sustaining themselves off of a particular area for as long as they could before moving on to exploit another area. Furthermore, many other Indians didn't have Western concepts of land or private ownership, so just as it would've proved difficult to rightfully purchase their land from them in a voluntary exchange, it was hard to consider them as being dispossessed in various circumstances as well.

While it's certainly possible, it seems highly unlikely that the animosity and bloodshed shown between the native Indian population and new white settlers would have been as great as it was had the settlers not been operating under, or assisted by, a violent and ruthless mask of official, sancrosanct government decree.

3. A few things to consider on the issue of voting: a.) your post presupposes the validity of voting as a method of allocating resources and privileges. Is voting about how to spend other peoples stolen wealth right? b.) It seems to me that from a "pragmatic" stand point, either EVERYONE should have the "right" to vote (ie, have a say in how to divvy up stolen property) or NO ONE should. History is filled with numerous examples of the social instability that comes with large groups of disenfranchised people within a society who are nonetheless expected to follow any decrees handed down to them by the enfranchised members of society. Of course, I prefer that NO ONE have the right to vote on anything because I think that only individuals can properly judge how to allocate their own resources and property, and a complete stranger has no rightful claim to telling me or anyone else what to do with our stuff.

I think you nailed it with your second to last paragraph-- regardless of what you think of the rightness or wrongness of immigration restriction, it's clear that increased immigration restriction will inevitably contribute to a further loss of personal liberty and put us only that much closer to a gulag archipelago, and on those consequentialist/utilitarian grounds alone, the position to take on this issue seems clear: end immigration restriction.

I still prefer looking at things from a natural rights perspective, however, because I believe it's the only perspective that truly matters. Once you give way on the principles of natural rights you essentially have no argument besides "I'm going to point a gun at your head now and we're going to do it my way." In other words, I'd rather not be the moralistic hypocrite.

I hope you'll follow this post up eventually, or at least jump into this comments thread as it grows to let us all know how your personal thoughts are developing.

And I share Jorge's sentiments-- we hope that the lack of a mention of Korrin means things are returning to normal at the Grigg home. Perhaps we were supposed to get the hint when you mentioned seeing a movie in your previous post, referencing the contemporary "Superbad" as showing at the same theater?

The late Harry Browne campaigned for the presidenc...

2007-08-29T19:08:00.000-06:00

The late Harry Browne campaigned for the presidency on an "End every penny of welfare, open the borders" platform. Sounds good to me.

The key is individual rights. By crossing the line...

2007-08-29T18:46:00.000-06:00

The key is individual rights. By crossing the line (I contend imaginary) between the US and Mexico, whose rights have been violated?

If rights have been violated, such as is the case when people trespass on private property, then it is correct to take action.

If the immigrants do not cross private property, and do not otherwise violate individual rights to life, liberty and property, then no crime has been committed. As long as this condition remains, the immigrant should be free to pursue his or her own version of the pursuit of happiness.

As Tom Knapp points out 'If the US had a reasonable immigration policy -- i.e. "show up at a designated entry station and if you're not a known criminal or terrorist, we'll point you to the taxicabs lined up on the American side and send you on your way" -- they wouldn't be crawling through the windows and knocking holes in the walls.'

I doubt the "Reconquista" movement represents even a tiny percentage of the Mexican (or Mexican-American) population. I strongly suspect they are even less representative of "illegal" Mexican immigrants. The "illegals" go the the US to work. They want to make a living, not take back Texas.

While I have no evidence (either way) for this assertion, I am willing to bet that the "movement" is made up mostly of "intellectuals", probably second or third generation US citizens, and is basically the same as university Marxism and know-nothing environmentalism.

PS: I hope the fact that you have not posted anything about Korrin's medical problems means that she is back home and doing well.