The Gulag Du Toit
Apr 03, 06 | 4:32 pm by Lynette WarrenThe spectacle of hispanic protests winding through the streets of America has riled the ranks of cultural conservative freedom fighters, it’s given the straight-shooting Liberty Belles a case of the vapors, and it’s even got Kim du Toit laying in the framework for American labor camps.
Addressing the concern that immigrants might get over or under an American Wall constructed at the border, du Toit proposes:
And we catch them doing it, and either repatriate them (first offense), or imprison them in tented labor camps for five years (subsequent offenses). They wanna work here? Fine. Let them do it as convicts, earning $1 per hour.
Du Toit implies that his labor camp solution could be a joke, but it stands to reason that he’s at least half-serious about it in the face of the high stakes game that du Toit, himself, outlines below.
Jokes aside, here’s the thing.Illegal immigration costs us an untold amount of money each year, in social services, law enforcement and unpaid taxes. That’s just pure currency we’re talking about.
Now add to that the harm done by drug smuggling, terrorist infiltration and increased gang violence.
Ask me again whether the cost of securing our southern border is too much.
Expense, drug crime, terror, and unpaid taxes inflicted on the country as a result of the unauthorized crossings of a line on a map. That’s du Toit’s justification for apprehending and detaining illegal immigrants at gunpoint, but if the consequences of illegal immigration in the form of drug smuggling and unpaid taxes are unacceptable, then why stop at throwing wetbacks into the labor camps when there’s plenty of tent space left for domestic drug dealers and tax evaders, as well? That’s the beauty of your gulag, Kim. It’ll not only keep Club America exclusive, it’ll also re-educate red-blooded American druggies and tax deadbeats.
April 3rd, 2006 at Apr 03, 06 | 10:58 pm
Once a South African, always a South African, it seems. Of course his comment thread is even worse. Absolutely beneath contempt.
April 3rd, 2006 at Apr 03, 06 | 11:41 pm
I don’t know what South Africa had to do with it. Du Toit is simply calling for what most cultural conservatives (and perhaps most Americans) want.
It’s nothing but your garden variety American collectivism.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:15 am
Makes one wonder what the point of all his pro-gun rhetoric is.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:37 am
Considering the complexity of gun law it strikes me as improbable that Du Toit is in full compliance.
It’s pretty hard not to be an illegal these days.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 1:56 am
While we’re at it, we might as well round up the queers and Jews, too.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 11:46 am
I don’t think that’s fair at all, people have plenty of non-bigotted reasons for wanting the borders closed.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:05 pm
Really. Name one that makes any sense.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:17 pm
Nor is it fair to suggest collectivism is at the root of Kim’s position, or of mine… particularly when the group that is orgnizing tehse protests is “International Answer”.. a group whose membership includes body groups such the Free Palestine Alliance, the Partnership for Civil Justice, the Nicaragua Network, the Korea Truth Commission, the Muslim Student Association, the Mexico Solidarity Network and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
I mean, you guys were aware of whom it is you’re siding with here, right?
Collectivist, my ass.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:35 pm
True, but when people are crying about illegal immigration, they mean “Mexicans”. If it were hordes of Scots sneaking in, I doubt anyone would care.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 12:55 pm
Along the same lines, check out this stinkbomb from Ron Paul.
He doesn’t even attempt an argument or try to weasel around the issue by appealing to a strict interpretation of his blessed constitution, it’s just one ambiguous-collective, economic fallacy after another.
Not that this is surprising coming from a politician, but the way in which this immigration (aka “moving”) issue has pushed people completely over the edge is absolutely horrifying.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 1:42 pm
These are surely the times that try libertarian souls. The movement experienced a painful culling of the intellectually weak with the events and aftermath of 9/11, and it’s happening again with the immigration issue.
You can’t be an individualist and at the same time blather about “cultural connections” and “assimilation” (what are we now, the Borg?). It’s distressing to see so many we have for so long considered “one of us” fail these tests. But it’s also enlightening, in a dismal sort of way.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 1:46 pm
Mexican immigrants tend to have more in common than ethnicity. If a comparable number of demographically comparable Scots were entering the country I have little doubt the reaction would be similar.
The arguments of people like Du Toit are largely sincere, I think, and must be addresses on their merits in any case.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 2:53 pm
Jay,
One can hardly doubt that every single member of congress is a collectivist.
Yet libertarians promote Paul and a champion and an example of how they can win politically.
It’s all quite perfectly hopeless.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 7:00 pm
Bithead,
No, that’s perfectly fair. You both hold the rights of the group above the rights of the individual. You’re essentially holding this territory to be the collective property of Americans and if that’s the case then the collective is fully entitled to do whatever it lakes with any individual in the territory.
You and Du Toit each have an individual right to keep Mexicans off your own property, but you don’t have any collective right to keep them off my property, no matter how many others agree with you.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 7:15 pm
Scott,
Not mine.
It wasn’t painful to me because I’d already realized that movements were not appropriate to individualists.
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 7:23 pm
No, that’s perfectly fair. You both hold the rights of the group above the rights of the individual.
No, I hold the rights os CITIZENS as paramount to a country. Seems to me your problem is you don’t like the group.
But you do seem inclined to lie down with the collctivists as I mentioned…
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 7:38 pm
You’re essentially holding this territory to be the collective property of Americans and if that’s the case then the collective is fully entitled to do whatever it lakes with any individual in the territory.
Not to nitpick, but is it your position that collective property is invalid as such, or merely in the special case that unanimous consent is lacking? Would you approve of villagers “collectively” owning a worn path or the space between buildings as Roderick Long advocates?
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 8:39 pm
Bithead,
Yes. And you hold that I as an individual have no right to have Mexicans on my property without the approval of your group, correct?
April 4th, 2006 at Apr 04, 06 | 9:45 pm
Stefan,
There is no good argument that America is collectively owned.
Collective ownwership is a rotten arrangement on any large scale. Joint ownership is another matter. The way that shareholders jointly own a company is vastly superior to the way citizens are supposed to own America.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 2:29 am
I can’t say I have a set, dogmatic position on this issue. Since I live in a state called “New Mexico,” taking a hard line against “Mexicans” or getting riled hearing the sounds of Spanish being spoken would be rather silly. And, I find the notion of totalitarian “labor camps” of any sort, for any reason, disgusting, not to mention dangerous for everyone. “First, they came for the Mexicans, but I wasn’t a Mexican…”
As I understand it, the libertarian/individualist position goes something like this: There are no groups, only individuals. There is no such thing as “Mexicans,” only individuals who live or lived within a region of land arbitrarily designated as “Mexico.” If an individual wishes to relocate from this arbitrary territory to another one called “the United States,” and this individual does not initiate force against anyone during the course of their move, who has a right to initiate force against them to prevent it?
This argument is a strong one in my opinon. If you imagine going up to a particular “illegal immigrant” named Alberto or Consuela, and shouting, “You! Get out of “our” country!”–when he or she has not harmed anyone in coming here, and does the best s/he can to earn his/her living, it’s hard to find a good justification.
On the other hand, the individualist position does not take into account emergent properties of multiple individuals such as shared cultural, religious, political or other ideas, and their potential effects as “externalities.”
To dispense with some of the shibboleths of “racism” and so forth, let’s imagine that libertarians finally managed to do something effective to create a realm of freedom. In a near-miraculous display of logic, they decided to forego the next ten years of pointless Libertarian Party presidential campaigns, and put the money into creating a libertarian island city we’ll call New Atlantis.
New Atlantis is a market-capitalist paradise, where a 12 year-old girl can buy herself a new I-Glock Autopistol in one of six fashionable colors, no questions asked, and carry it to school without anyone having a reason to do anything but smile and tell her how nice the holster looks with her miniskirt; where magic mushrooms and cannabis are sold next to bananas in the produce section, and “taxation” is considered a cussword not appropriate in mixed company.
Now, let’s say there’s a major economic downturn in “the United States,” and individuals from Massachusetts start emigrating to New Atlantis in search of economic opportunity. They’re all WASPs whose families came over to “America” on the Mayflower. Since they’re all economically desperate, it turns out they’ll work for lower wages than Atlanteans, so many of the major Atlantean corporations start bringing them in en masse, creating “company neighborhoods” for them, and so forth. No initiation of force involved.
But, these new immigrants are shocked by the absence of “common-sense gun control laws,” the existence of cigarette vending machines, and the absence of a “basic social safety net.” Some of them come over to the Atlantean way of thinking, but most don’t. As more and more of these immigrants come in, they start to realize that they represent a significant portion of the city’s population.
So, they get together and form a Democratic Party and start agitating for some “sensible regulation” and a “fairer distribution of wealth.” The Atlanteans, being good libertarians, have virtually no political organization whatsoever, and what organization they do have consists of small, bickering groups ordered on the lines of the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea.
Furthermore, the Massachusetts immigrants have started churches and Rotary Clubs, and “Massachusetts-Atlantean Rights” groups. Soon, entire sections of the city are no longer willing to accept the idea of 12 year-old girls with guns or people smoking (tobbacco or cannabis) in restaurants. Any suggestion that the inflow of new “Massachusetts-Atlantean” immigration be slowed or halted is met immediately with large, well-organized protests, and accusations ranging from “collectivism” to “racism.”
The “original” Atlanteans scratch their heads and say, “Well, we can’t point to any particular Massachusetts-Atlantean and say they initiated force in getting here, and their demonstrations and Rotary Clubs and churches are all examples of freedom of speech and association… But if they keep coming, it won’t be long before we’re paying taxes again!”
Attempts by some Atlantean companies and property-owners associations to keep M-Atlanteans from their property result in withering charges of bigotry and collectivism. M-Atlantean youths, fired from their jobs and displaced from company property, riot in several of the suburbs. By now, this is an initiation of force, so the Atlantean Market Defense Agencies can respond… But the M-Atlanteans, seeing their children under attack for merely demanding civil rights such as job security and health care, fight back. Though still a minority, they are better organized, and New Atlantis has a Fourth Generation war on its hands.
Meanwhile, the immigrants keep coming… So, what’s a good Atlantean to do?
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 4:57 am
So the distinction between the “good” and “bad” sorts of group ownership have nothing to do with size in your opinion? I see you’re point about a corporation; it does leave open the remote possibility that under anarcho-capitalism a company could come to justly own the continental United States, but that’s probably a remote enough possibility to not worry about it.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 2:46 pm
Get rid of social security, the income tax, corporate tax… hell, all taxes! Sell all public land, including every cubic inch down to the mantle, and all the minerals therein; sell the oceans,; sell the airspace; sell it all!
There now, every cubic inch of of space is privately owned. Even growing up requires permission of the owner of the space above you.
Government is rendered irrelevant and disappears. Mexican immigration problem evaporates.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 5:04 pm
I mean, you guys were aware of whom it is you’re siding with here, right?
[GODWIN ALERT!!!]
I’m 100% certain I can find a Nazi who thinks the state should restrict immigration from the south.
So…why are you siding with Nazis?
[/GODWIN ALERT!!!]
You can end this foolishness now, Sir. It isn’t a useful argument, unless your intent is to smear and insult.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 5:10 pm
Charles,
It was such a clumsy attempt that I thought it was funny to leave it hanging out there. Spoilsport.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 6:40 pm
Kennedy:
Well, at least the reactions from nativist bullies were pretty similar when comparable numbers of demographically comparable Irish immigrants were entering the country.
So I’m sure it’s true that part of what motivates nativists is based on socioeconomic status at least as much as it’s based on race. Still, I’m not sure why this would make the argument based on something other than bigotry. Isn’t there class bigotry as well as racial bigotry?
Right, but pointing out that an argument rests on bigoted premises isn’t necessarily an evasion of the merits of the argument. Bigotry is a form of collectivism, and if you have a general case against using violence on the basis of collectivist premises than afortiori you have a case against using violence on the basis of bigoted premises. So pointing out that someone is trying to use bigotry to defend aggression seems to me just as good an argument as pointing out that someone is trying to use other forms of collectivism (e.g. constitutionalism or democratic mysticism) to justify aggression. If the latter doesn’t work, the former doesn’t either.
April 5th, 2006 at Apr 05, 06 | 8:24 pm
Not shoot them at the border.
Atlantis would be private property. If you invite more thieves than you can handle onto your private property I guess you have a problem.
April 6th, 2006 at Apr 06, 06 | 1:40 pm
Hardly a clumsy attempt… it is CENTRAL to the situation.
This whole thing would not be on the tabel at all, absent a concerted effort by the socilists.
April 6th, 2006 at Apr 06, 06 | 1:49 pm
Who gives socialists a vote?
April 7th, 2006 at Apr 07, 06 | 1:11 pm
Bithead,
So you’re siding with Stormfront?
April 9th, 2006 at Apr 09, 06 | 1:53 am
We, apparantly, are siding with the “socilists”, whoever they are.
Bithead, you have a brain the size of a BB.
April 9th, 2006 at Apr 09, 06 | 2:29 am
So, what’s a good Atlantean to do?
Way down below the ocean,
Where I wanna be,
She may be.
April 10th, 2006 at Apr 10, 06 | 10:37 pm
I second the motion for JTK to give an example of one of those “non-bigotted reasons for wanting the borders closed” that he claims people have. As I see it, the reasons are:
1) For WASPs, that most immigrants are poor, Catholic (or something other than Protestant), speak a different native language, and are willing to work harder for less money than WASPs.
2) For Legal immigrants, that illegal immigrants are poorer and willing to work harder for less money than legal immigrants.
3) For American blacks, that immigrants are poorer, usually of a different religion, speak a different language, and are willing to work harder for less money than blacks.
Which of these reasons is non-bigotted - or, what other reasons are there?
April 11th, 2006 at Apr 11, 06 | 2:15 pm
For Legal immigrants, that illegal immigrants are poorer and willing to work harder for less money than legal immigrants… or, what other reasons are there?
It’s usually said to be unfair to legal immigrants because they “respected the law and went through the system”. I don’t see that as bigotted reasoning.
It is, however, utterly moronic.
April 11th, 2006 at Apr 11, 06 | 4:13 pm
As for PT Galt’s scenario: If there is no effective mechanism for preventing the immigrating hordes of poor-but-still-statist types from imposing statism from within your libertopia, what effective mechanism will there be to keep them out? If enough of them want in badly enough, they will be strong enough to do so militarily.
April 11th, 2006 at Apr 11, 06 | 5:34 pm
what effective mechanism will there be to keep them out? If enough of them want in badly enough, they will be strong enough to do so militarily.
So you’re saying maybe a foreign state sends in hordes of “settlers” that are really the vanguard of an attack? That certainly sounds like a dangerous scenario. My intuition is that either
1) if the statists really had so much manpower then there’d be no way to stop them anyway, or
2) somehow it would become apparent that they were gearing up for an attack, whether through not forming business partnerships with the locals or hiding AK-47s and uniforms in their basements or something.
There’s been some fiction on the scenario you describe I believe; The Ungoverned started out with statists importing soldiers (I think) close to an anarcho-capitalist society as a prelude to attack.
April 11th, 2006 at Apr 11, 06 | 11:13 pm
As you know I agree with PT Galt’s scenario. Despite the appeal of pure Libertarianism to some who believe it makes them morally superior, the damn thing just doesn’t work.
There are many non-racist rationals for not wanting immigration but, of course, they deal with reality and not libertarian utopias.
None of the Libertarian systems you have in mind are in place, therefore completely open immigration would have many bad side effects from my point of view that are not just.
1) I’d end up having to support them
2) I can’t move into their countries since they have outlawed my immigration there. Worse still they have laws on the books that would require my execution even if I was a native.
3) I’m a high value replicator. I invest in my offspring like the oak not the weed.
4) The above three make for a strategy that pretty much guarantees the eventual elimination of me and mine.
That’s not about racism but personal extermination. They don’t play by the same rules and the rules they do play by put me at a disadvantage. Sorry, guys, I’m just another replicator and I don’t see much future in letting the other guy see my cards when he won’t let me look at his.
Don’t talk to me about past waves of immigrants either. Seems to me they were part of the impetus to the labor movements of the times and what are currently less libertarian style rules.
April 12th, 2006 at Apr 12, 06 | 3:19 am
Macker’s argument that immigration is bad because he’d “end up having to support them” fails for several reasons:
1) It is overbroad: Many immigrants will be self-supporting; if he is right that most of them will have more children than him, then their combined contributions to Social Security will do more to support them in retirement than his will.
2) It is underinclusive: Many non-immigrants are recipients of welfare, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc., and thus greater burdens upon him than many immigrants. If immigrants are to be prevented from entering or deported based on the presumption that they are burdens upon the taxpayers, why should citizens who are demonstrably burdens upon the taxpayers receive any better treatment?
3) It violates the presumption of innocence: To presume that immigrants will burden the taxpayers is collectivist and prejudicial. At most, it could be argued that immigrants who are proven to burden the taxpayers ought to be deported or otherwise cut off from tax-funded services. This would still beg the question of why citizens should enjoy better treatment.
4) It is really an argument against welfare and other tax-funded redistribution schemes, not an argument against immigration.
5) The logic that those who may do things which will qualify them for transfer payments from taxpayers may justly have their liberty restricted implies a whole lot more restrictions than just upon immigration. Those with lifestyles or diets that lead to terminal illness in old age would qualify for Medicare/Medicaid; by Macker’s logic, unhealthy lifestyles and diets could then be justly banned.
As an alternative, here’s my 3-step solution to the “illegal immigration problem”:
1) Bar all illegal immigrants from being able to receive any tax-funded transfer payments or services;
2) Exempt all illegal immigrants from all the taxes that go to pay for those transfer payments and services;
3) Allow citizens to apply for the same status.
April 12th, 2006 at Apr 12, 06 | 10:45 am
Tim,
Your answer to number 1) is from a moral and evolutionary standpoint wrong. Parents who try to produce more children do not always succeed. Raising Children takes time and resources. A set of parents who produces two children can invest far more in that child than one who produces six. This is especially true in a libertarian society where the parent would bear the full burden of education. Without inheritance taxes a two child family community need not build any new housing each generation, so there are additional cost savings.
I said morally wrong because even if someone else produced the children and yet I bore the burden of raising them then I deserve some portion of the revenue stream they produce.
It wasn’t overbroad since I did not specify any policy whatsoever. I was merely showing that purely open immigration won’t work. You can filter for the self supporting immigrants by all sorts of unspecified means.
2) Again, it can’t be underinclusive since I made no recommendation. However certainly the first step needs to be cutting off the freeloaders that are already here before importing more of them.
3) There is no violation of the presumption of innocences for similar reasons to the above. Not having totally open borders is not the same thing as completely closing off the borders. There are an infinite number of possibile sets of rules.
4) Yes, it is and no it isn’t. Some people use collectivist strategies in replicating, both there culture and there genes. If those strategies give them an edge then I see no reason not to use collectivist strategies to defeat them. As an example, some like the mafia collectivize on kin relationships then initiate force to “redistribute” my resources to them. They then reproduce genetically pass these cultural values on to their young. I don’t see why I can’t collectivize with others of my own kind to repel them. So should an immigrant family be found to be behaving thusly they should be deported, or pre-filtered in the first place.
5) Yes, they could. That is certainly a danger. Question is, you don’t think this would happen in a Libertarian society? You are going to have to join some group to protect yourself. That group is going to have rules. You would end up with a society something like somalia. There would be even less license in a Libertarian society, as people gravitated to in and out groups in search of security.
I like your solution better than what we have now but it isn’t going to happen. Especially when libertarians aren’t willing to participate in the political process. Politics will exist in any system that is designed, even a libertarian utopia. It would just take a different form.
April 12th, 2006 at Apr 12, 06 | 6:19 pm
Replies to Macker:
1) If you have two children and someone else has 6 children, then under the current system you will benefit disproportionately from the Social Security taxes paid by the other children, because their total contribution to SS will be greater than that of your children - all else being equal, of course.
2) Your argument is overbroad because it doesn’t apply to all immigrants. It is underinclusive because it applies to more than just immigrants. This is true no matter what policy recommendations you make.
3) If you require immigrants to prove that they will be self-supporting in order for them to enter the country, that is a form of prior restraint which violates the presumption of innocence.
4) Your argument about “collectivist strategies in replicating” is too vague for me to understand it. Please be more specific.
5) I have nothing against joining groups, nor in excluding people from private voluntary associations unless they meet the requirements for group membership. I simply maintain that that is different than State borders, because States are not private voluntary associations.
As for Somalia, I knew Michael van Notten, who lived in Somalia from before the UN invasion in the early 1990s until his death a couple of years ago, and spoke with him at length about what it was like there. One thing I can tell you for sure is that it is not a situation in which no one belongs to any groups organized for mutual protection, as that is the main function of the Somali clans. They provide police/military protection, courts, and old-age pensions.
6) Libertarians do participate in the political process. Most of the term limits initiatives that have been passed were the results of libertarian political entrepreneurship. So were many tax-limitation initiatives. So are many of the eminent domain limitation initiatives that are being worked on right now.
April 13th, 2006 at Apr 13, 06 | 12:33 am
Bithead,
That’s merely because the commies judge that by doing so, they’ll get all the votes of those immigrants.
And whose problem is that — who here endorses giving out voting rights? Answer is that you do: you love you some American-style government. So, you’ll pardon me if I’m underwhelmed about you facing down the consequences of the majoritarian democracy you endorse.
April 13th, 2006 at Apr 13, 06 | 2:30 pm
You are going to have to join some group to protect yourself. That group is going to have rules. You would end up with a society something like somalia. There would be even less license in a Libertarian society, as people gravitated to in and out groups in search of security.
That makes no sense. Increased competition increases the number of choices available to consumers, not the reverse.
I like your solution better than what we have now but it isn’t going to happen. Especially when libertarians aren’t willing to participate in the political process.
Libertarians (big “L”) have been trying to participate in the poltical process. How do you guess that’s been going so far?
Politics will exist in any system that is designed, even a libertarian utopia. It would just take a different form.
If by “politics” you mean negotiation for resources and responsibilities then sure, but so what? If you mean just what we have now, well then obviously there wouldn’t be statist politics in a libertarian society (duh!).
April 13th, 2006 at Apr 13, 06 | 10:36 pm
John T. Kennedy wrote:
“Not shoot them at the border.
Atlantis would be private property. If you invite more thieves than you can handle onto your private property I guess you have a problem. “
And what if other people invite more thieves than you can handle onto their property? Say, you’re an average homeowner in Atlantis. You have not invited anyone from Massachusetts onto your property, but the big corporations have brought them in en masse for the cheap labor. They bring with them cultural changes that are not confined to corporate property. One by one, the naked statues of Courtney Love are removed from public parks or draped with drapes because they’re “obscene,” and you can no longer go to the farmers’ market, buy a few bags of cannabis, and drive home by the most direct route, because the “Little Massachusetts” neighborhoods that have sprung up (all funded by the corporations with no initiation of force) are Drug Free Zones whose Defense Agencies randomly search cars passing into, through, and out of their parts of the city.
Given the M-Atlanteans’ superior political organization and their backing by the big corps that brought them, they start imposing “common sense” regulation, like labor laws, licenses and so forth that help the corporations erect barriers to entry against rival entrepreneurs. Sooner or later, even if you never invite a single M-Atlantean onto your property, the culture around you will change, and you’ll find yourself living in a clone of Massachusetts.
Given that it’s “illegal” immigration we’re talking about, we could also include the scenario of people landing on the beaches in un-seaworthy craft from Massachusetts, without having been invited by any corporation or anyone else. In this case, they’d be trespassers, but if they’re trespassing in large enough numbers, and have support from “M-Atlantean Rights” groups who demand that owners of beachfront property “not shoot them at the border,” sooner or later Atlantis would be overrun, wouldn’t it?
There are two problems here that IMO are not being addressed. One is that imported people and the ideas and cultural influences they bring cannot be neatly contained on the property of those who invite them if they’re coming in large enough numbers (unless you’re talking about “privatized” versions of those tent-city work camps). The M-Atlanteans would want to go to the grocery store, restaurants, etc. like everyone else.
And since they come from a culture where magic mushrooms, cigarette vending machines, and guns being bought and sold like screwdrivers are “offensive,” while the right of a group to demand society ban things if finds “offensive” is perfectly acceptable, they would eventually be able to impose their cultural norms on Atlantis, even on people who never invited them onto their own property.
Second, there is the Action In Concert Problem. Libertarians, individualists, and “market-anarchist” theoreticians have thus far proven completely incapable of getting enough of their number to act in concert to create the kind of social environment (e.g. a genuinely free one) they want to live in. In contrast, every four years, the Republican and Democratic parties can get tens of millions of people to go to the same place (polling stations) and do the same thing (vote) on the same day, no matter how terrible their candidates are. Result: Republicans and Democrats write the rules by which libertarians, individualists, and market-anarchist theoreticians have to live by.
Even if the Yankees were a minority in Atlantis, they would probably govern the place, since their Democratic Party would be running against (if there were elections) or engaging in 4th Generation war against (if there weren’t) several thousand bickering libertarian/individualist parties and large numbers of completely unorganized private landowners. IOW, they would win through action in concert.
Market-anarchists will often talk about how well the Icelandic Commonwealth worked as a market-anarchist society. And maybe it did, while it was relatively isolated. But what happened when it was forced into competition with medieval theocracy? Medieval theocracy won hands down. It doesn’t matter how nice market anarchism sounds on paper, or how moral a society that absolutely recognized property rights would be, or how great the world would become if 6.5 billion people would all suddenly agree, as if by magic, to sell everything from the ionosphere to Earth’s creamy liquid center on Ebay.
If market anarchism cannot compete with the State, ethnic, religious, cultural, and other collectivisms here, now, in this reality, starting with the people who believe in it (instead of imagining the day when 6.5 billion Earthlings, or even 300 million Americans will, all at once, decide to toss everything they’re used to overboard and try something new), then it’s just a fine-sounding fantasy, like Communism that works or riding flying carpets to work.
Another thing I’d like to see regarding the debate on “illegal” immigration is a better refutation of something like this than merely hurling charges of racism, bigotry, and the like. Hurl the charges if they’re true (Lind defines himself as a “cultural conservative” and has an odd fondness for the regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II…), but also show why his beliefs are incorrect.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 12:19 am
Market-anarchists will often talk about how well the Icelandic Commonwealth worked as a market-anarchist society. And maybe it did, while it was relatively isolated. But what happened when it was forced into competition with medieval theocracy? Medieval theocracy won hands down.
Half of what you’re saying is nonsense, but I just can’t let this one pass. They lasted longer than a lot of medieval theorcracies, as well as lasting longer than the ~200 yrs the United States has existed. And they were not “in competition” with the king of Norway; internal wealth inequalities and feuding eventually destabilized it to the point that it accepted monarchy. Roderick Long has argued elsewhere that the causes of this destabilization were related to taxation (the church tithe), but even if you don’t agree with his case you can’t simply damn the Icelandic Commonwealth as inferior to monarchy without some explanation.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 12:28 am
Another thing I’d like to see regarding the debate on “illegal” immigration is a better refutation of something like this than merely hurling charges of racism, bigotry, and the like.
That’s easy; Lind attacks “multiculturalism”. But if the “culture” of a group of people happens to involve killing their neighbors and taking their stuff, then mixing with a libertarian society is not immigration; it’s war.
Given that it’s “illegal” immigration we’re talking about, we could also include the scenario of people landing on the beaches in un-seaworthy craft from Massachusetts, without having been invited by any corporation or anyone else. In this case, they’d be trespassers, but if they’re trespassing in large enough numbers, and have support from “M-Atlantean Rights” groups who demand that owners of beachfront property “not shoot them at the border,” sooner or later Atlantis would be overrun, wouldn’t it?
Some of your objections might be better addressed by picking up a copy of The Ungoverned or some other anarcho-capitalist fiction (David Friedman has a list in his book). At least they might help stimulate your thinking on some of these issues.
Given the M-Atlanteans’ superior political organization and their backing by the big corps that brought them, they start imposing “common sense” regulation, like labor laws, licenses and so forth that help the corporations erect barriers to entry against rival entrepreneurs. Sooner or later, even if you never invite a single M-Atlantean onto your property, the culture around you will change, and you’ll find yourself living in a clone of Massachusetts.
Of course the “imposition” of “common sense” regulation will amount to aggression, at which point the private defence agencies would be forced to step in. You can argue that perhaps defence agencies will be inherently unstable, prone to turning into governments, etc, but I think you’re pretty naive to assume that a bunch of statists can just move in to a libertarian society and start running things the way they want without encountering any resistance at all.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 10:04 am
All other things aren’t equal. In fact those 6 children are likely to produce far less money than the higher quality children produced by the person who refrains from over reproduction.
I’ll give you an example, which is simplified for illustration purposes. Suppose there are two cultural groups each starting with an equal amount of assets. Lets say it’s 100 acres of land, per married couple distributed uniformly. These are farmers and farming methods are primitive. Let’s further suppose that if a couple were to forgo educating one child that would save them enough money to feed, clothe, and shelter an addition child. Under current technological conditions one hundred acres provides enough resources to feed, clothe, and shelter six children. The two cultural groups are the Birchites and the Oakites. The Birchites like the birch tree make less investment per offspring, and have six children each. Birch tree seeds are small and numerous. The Oakites like the Oak tree have fewer offspring but invest heavily in them, they have two children each. Both cultural groups start out the same in terms of education, technology, and capital assets.
During the first generation the Oakites just replace their population, and the Birchites triple theirs. There are important differences however in the state of the children.
Each Oakite couple has additional resources per child and invests those in an education for there child and in capital for their child. The capital takes the form of a plow. Since the population of Oakites remains the same they each inherit the same amount of land as their parents had. Because of the educational and capital expenditures each Oakite child can produce more resources from the same amount of land than the prior generation. So the 2nd generation of Oakites has enough resources per couple to support 12 children each.
Each Birchite couple produces uneducated children with no plow and 1/3 the land assets as their parents have. Each new Birchite couple having less land and the same educational and capital levels will produce enough resources to produce exactly two children each with no education and no capital assets. Birchite reproductive capacity has reached it’s plateau and from this point forward the Birchites will only be able to replace their population levels.
This is not true for the Oakites, in fact their reproduction increases. They still have the same attitude towards reproduction, which is to produce high quality offspring but have more resources to do so. The could go “all Birchite” and produce 12 uneducated children each, with no capital assets, and diminished land per child, but that would result in a population crash in generation four. No what the Oakites do is to continue their strategy and produce two children for each six units of resources. Their population doubles this time, and will keep increasing until the carrying capacity of the land holds up.
If we were to assume that the education and capital investments were not cumulative and that plows wear out after one generation then the carrying capacity of the land has merely doubled. Thus after several generations the Oakites will outnumber the Birchites two to one. The quality of life they live however will also be much higher.
That is a bad assumption however. Capital improvements and educational advances are cumulative. The Oakites will continue to improve their standard of living. They will advance from the plow, to the tractor. The will go from hand picking to harvesting machinery, etc.
In the above scenario I was assuming that no trade or labor relations occur between the groups. If we remove that assumption what will happen is that the two groups will trade against their strengths and weaknesses. The Oakites will hire Birchites to work their land and the Birchites will be driven out of land ownership because they can produce less per acre. Land is more valuable to Oakites because they can produce more from it so they will buy up all the Birchite land.
Both Birchites and Oakites will see their standard of living improved by these arrangements. There will however be a vast gulf in their earnings capacities. Birchites will earn more than they would in a pure Birchite society but will still have and earn far less than Oakites.
What one sees from this example that it is the replication strategy of the Birchites, which is responsible for their poverty, not the Oakites. I believe that the consequences of behavior should be born by the agents that produce that behavior. Replicators (the locus of agency) whether genotypic or memotypic should get feedback from their phenotypic results.
Now one could set up the society at this point where you transfer assets from Oakites to Birchites via capital gains taxes, welfare transfers, progressive taxation and the like. What you are in effect doing by that however is making the Oakites raise the children of the Birchites. If there were some sort of benefit to be gotten from children in old age then why should those benefits inure to the Birchite parents. It’s the story of the Little Red Hen. They didn’t bake the bread, why should they enjoy it.
So the long and the short of is that six ignorant dishwashers cannot earn nearly as much money as six highly educated and capital intense computer programmers.
Besides your whole line of reasoning is wrong. In my case I don’t plan on retiring early and also don’t expect social security to support me. I save heavily for my retirement. It’s easy because I earn between 10 to 30 times the amount an unskilled immigrant gets. Furthermore, it is the capital that I produce and save during my lifetime that will support me in old age, not the number of bodies produced. It would take hundreds of poor immigrant children to support me in my old age without the capital, not merely six. What matters is how much capital I consume vs. produce more than anything. Right now I am producing enough to both pay for my own high investment children plus to pay for several immigrants, and save for my retirement, and support the current social security freeloaders who are taking out more than they put in.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 10:25 am
Nonsense. In the first case a policy could distinguish between particular immigrants, and in the second case a policy could use forced emigration.
There reasons for distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens has nothing to do with the argument. Just because both citizens and non-citizens can act as parasites or criminals doesn’t mean we should not make distinctions.
For instance it is much harder to kick someone out than to keep them from coming in. That’s especially true when you have a uniform culture, since you can distinguish people by their accents, behavior, and other traits.
Using your reasoning we could not prevent criminals from immigrating to this country, in the case where our laws were not perfect with regard to catching the criminals already here. If the person trying to come here has a know criminal record and has never held down a job then how is that different than the same person who already resides here?
There are overbroad policies like completely shutting down the borders that would keep him out but that doesn’t mean all policies are this way. Selectively keeping out the criminal is not inclusive enough because there are already criminals living in the country that are not being punished either.
Why on earth should I care about the exclusiveness since I can fix that by policy. Why should inclusiveness matter. If I am already being victimized by one set of criminals then why invite in more?
The inclusiveness could also be resolved by policy if you are willing to banish and deport even criminal citizens. They are still not be punished. These types of resolutions have been common in “non-State” societies in the past.
Note that I am not suggesting these as suitable to our current situation. I am only using them as examples to disprove your contention.
There are plenty of other ways of dealing with this also. In the past immigrants were required to have a sponsor who was responsible for any actions taken by the immigrant. That is another possibility.
I believe the first step should be to correct our bad internal policies such a welfare and social security, before we go to more open immigration. As long as those policies are in place there is no reason not to filter immigrants based on the likelihood they will exploit the system.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 10:57 am
Your argument about “collectivist strategies in replicating” is too vague for me to understand it. Please be more specific.
Individual behavior is highly influenced by ones cultural background which one inherits from ones parents to a large extent. Culture consists of beliefs that are replicated from generation to generation.
An example of a collectivist strategy in replicating would be the mafia. Average Americans do not rely on family gangs to use force against others. This behavior is replicative and culturally hereditary. That is members of the mafia tend to bring their children up as criminals with clan type values. Values such as “never be a snitch”, “kill rats and stool pigeons”, and “once a member always a member on pain of death”.
Another example is the Islamic religion. There is a whole collection of memes that work together to give a group advantage over individual non-Muslims. It is next to impossible to fairly compete in a Muslim society if you are non-Muslim. These strategies include, murder of apostates (similar to the mafias membership rule), prohibitions on intermarriage, judicial double standards when it comes to non-Muslims, intolerance of non-Muslims, Jihad, Sharia, etc.
These strategies are quite successful and are the main reason that Christianity and Islam are so widespread. Christianity has to a large extent dropped these strategies and is a shrinking religion. The other poster mentioned Iceland and it’s.
You can empirically see this happening in Europe. Muslims as a group are very intolerant of people who dress differently. Thus there is a raping spree occurring against European women by Islamic men that will eventually have the effect of modifying the behavior of the European outsiders.
This is not merely the province of Muslims either. The French cultural intolerance is an example of this. English language bans in Quebec being a specific example.
Other strategies are having a common language, being xenophobic, controlling immigration.
Saudi Arabia allows zero immigration, no construction of temples of other religions, and no missionary work within their country, yet allows emigration, actively builds mosques and does missionary work in other countries. I hope you can see how these collectivist strategies in replication results in less than a level playing field for other cultural beliefs, both in their own country and abroad. Such a strategy is more likely to spread than one of extremist individualism.
An example of a non-collectivist strategy would be to NOT have your child taught the tenets of your own religion, and not expect them to marry another co-religionist. Our public school systems tend to be of this nature, whereas, those in Saudi Arabia do not.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 11:31 am
Tim,
I don’t understand your response on Somalia. I know about what you explained already, had read the article over at Mises, and was specifically using it as an example. An example of something I had deduced (and observed) prior to reading about it. People would tend to turn to clannish behavior under a libertarian society. Then the clans would restrict the behavior of their members. In this case the clans are Muslim and you know the kinds of restrictions they have. No bacon cheeseburgers, no sex outside marriage, no bikinis, etc.
Do you see my point?
I think there is an assumption in Libertarianism that corporatism is a result of freedom and that we would naturally shop for things like security, insurance, charity, etc, separately. However there are transaction costs in doing so which are eliminated by having a Statist society with limited liability corporate law. It’s not clear to me that when you get rid of these things that you wouldn’t just end up with Somalia. One stop shopping.
We often see Libertarians who think things like traffic laws would disappear under a “free society” and thus get people like LP party candidate Badnarik doing silly things like refusing to get a license. We have discussed this before on this forum and I see no reason why a private owner wouldn’t also require a license, have stop signs on his roads, and require insurance. Not only that but despite the economic drawbacks he might decide to restrict travel to members of his own group. He could make more money by letting any person willing to pay on the road but supposedly under a libertarian society he is going to bear all costs. There are security costs to himself and to the neighbors that are involve in just letting anybody in who pays the fee. I don’t see why the neighbors couldn’t sue him to pay for damages caused by his failure to properly control the mob on his land. If criminals are using his property as a base of operations to get at the other property holders then have a right to stop it.
In reality this is what happens. Clan leaders tend to end up controlling travel within their jurisdictions and tend to restrict travel on the basis of security. What could be more insecure than having many members of a neighboring clan milling about in your territory? Thus such activities are restricted on the basis of clan membership, race, religion, etc. Exceptions are made but the freedom of travel is nothing like we have here. We can’t have women in bikinis driving around in convertibles on Islamic highways. That would cause Islamic road rage not to mention traffic accidents.
I have used this as an argument for Libertarianism in the past. People arguing against libertarianism say that it wouldn’t work because no one would obey the stop signs, and everyone would devolve into libertines. I have to point out that Libertarian society would be far more restrictive than they imagine. I don’t go to the degree I have here however, although it is perfectly true. People do not want to live in Somalia like societies.
Do I know things would go this way? No. There might be some cultural evolution or invention that makes it possible. One similar to the join ownership revolution cause by the invention of stocks. It might already exist but I don’t know about it. I do however think my concerns are justified. I take the view of Hayek that societies are complex beasts and evolution, not revolution is the way to gain improvements.
Our immigration strategy for the past 50 or so years has been revolutionary compared to the past. We’ve dropped our cultural guard.
April 14th, 2006 at Apr 14, 06 | 4:32 pm
It is next to impossible to fairly compete in a Muslim society if you are non-Muslim.
Well, it would be next to impossible for an individua to “compete” against a society allied against him in any society. :)
April 15th, 2006 at Apr 15, 06 | 7:16 am
Stefan,
What’s your point. I don’t see one. I’m an atheist in a Christian dominated society. I don’t have problems competing and being openly atheist. That’s because Christianity culture, with hard prodding from non-believers has abandoned the types of beliefs and rules that Islam still hangs on to.
Another example of Islamic cultural rules that tend to make them behave as a group instead of individuals. In three or more separate places the Qu’ran tells Muslims not to befriend non-Muslims and to treat such friendships as inferior to ones with other Muslims.
Basically it has all the types of rules any domestic cult has. This tends to program people not to act as individualists but as aggressive wholes.
I don’t see any track record where anarchist type societies have done well against such collective behavior.
April 15th, 2006 at Apr 15, 06 | 6:39 pm
What’s your point. I don’t see one.
Maybe if you mastered punctuation your comprehension would go up. :)
I don’t see any track record where anarchist type societies have done well against such collective behavior.
Well anarchist societies have had some trouble forming, mainly due to the iron boot that the state currently holds on everyone’s face. I’m optimistic however for the future. Go, medieval Iceland! :)
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 2:09 am
I don’t see any track record where anarchist type societies have done well against such collective behavior.
Not only medieval Iceland, but also medieval Ireland, certain Native American tribes, and a few other societies. As much as I despise the Mises Institute, the Journal of Libertarian Studies had a great article about that. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the exact reference.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 2:33 am
Why do you despise the Mises Institute?
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 3:42 am
We’ve been through this before. Don’t get me started again. If you can’t see Rockwell, Hoppe and Company for the fascist, bigoted, theocratic nutbars that they are, then there’s nothing I can do to help you. And by the way, are you really optimistic about the future? Can you point to one development over the past fifty years, anywhere in the world, that made you optimistic?
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 4:10 am
BrianMacker -
Found it: Benson, Bruce L. Enforcement of Private Property Rights in Primitive Societies: Law without Government. Journal of Libertarian Studies 9(1): 1-26 (1989).
Available here: http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_1/9_1_1.pdf
Read it and maybe you’ll learn something.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 5:29 am
Stefan Says:
Half of what you’re saying is nonsense, but I just can’t let this one pass. They lasted longer than a lot of medieval theorcracies, as well as lasting longer than the ~200 yrs the United States has existed.”
The IC may have lasted longer than some medieval theocracies, but market anarchism *as a system* (as manifest in the IC) did not outlast or outperform medieval theocracy *as a system.* According to the MA theorists I’ve read, it’s supposed to be vastly superior to government, since free market defense agencies and such do not have the overwhelming inefficiencies of their government competitors, while their un-taxed, unregulated economy should (according to theory) be an engine of prosperity and innovation as much as 8 times*** more productive than a government economy.
If this were the case, the IC, or Ebla (an ancient city in Syria that may have been another market-anarchist society), ought to have demonstrated this superiority the same way agricultural society inexorably spread, replacing hunter-gatherer society. Or so it might seem. Perhaps market anarchism works better in an age of high technology, in a certain type of cultural environment, or it needed a better arrangement than those societies had.
***This is the estimate given by L. Neil Smith, based on the idea of the cost of taxes and regulations being added at each step of production of goods and services. My guess is that a factor-of-eight advantage is overblown, and that most market anarchist theoreticians would agree.
“And they were not “in competition” with the king of Norway; internal wealth inequalities and feuding eventually destabilized it to the point that it accepted monarchy. Roderick Long has argued elsewhere that the causes of this destabilization were related to taxation (the church tithe), but even if you don’t agree with his case you can’t simply damn the Icelandic Commonwealth as inferior to monarchy without some explanation. “
I’m not “damning” the IC, or market-anarchism. Both may have been (and would be) superior to monarchy and other governmental systems in many ways, but one: thus far (prove me wrong, please!) they have proven unable to compete effectively with monarchy and other government systems.
Consider the extreme amounts of profligate waste of wealth governments engage in. The Pyramids, Versailles, the latest Quadrennial Defense Review… If McDonalds started engaging in comparable inefficiencies (say, adding solid gold countertops to its restaurants), it would be quickly outcompeted by market competitors. Government, OTOH, is able to engage in incalculable waste of wealth and lives, over thousands of years, without even coming close to being outcompeted by some hyper-efficient market-anarchist rival.
“Well anarchist societies have had some trouble forming, mainly due to the iron boot that the state currently holds on everyone’s face.”
This is my point in a nutshell. Government has thus far proven able to outcompete market anarchism throughout recorded history. Unless market anarchists can develop a way to outcompete the state, starting with the numbers and resources they now possess (instead of imagining how nice it would work if 300 million Americans suddenly became market anarchists), it will remain nothing more than a nice theory. So far as I can tell, market anarchists fill out their 1040 forms just like everybody else, and (like true libertarians) cannot seem to act in concert well enough to start even a small freeport of 5-10,000 people on the coast of Somalia or some Pacific island.
I wish they could. I would gladly declare myself to be a market anarchist if I saw any prospect of it becoming a reality instead of a fantasy comparable to the Workers’ Paradise or the Christian heaven.
“I’m optimistic however for the future. Go, medieval Iceland! :)”
I’d be interested in the reasons for your optimism. Is there a market-anarchist project somewhere that is “for real?”
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 6:03 am
Stefan wrote:
“Lind attacks “multiculturalism”. But if the “culture” of a group of people happens to involve killing their neighbors and taking their stuff, then mixing with a libertarian society is not immigration; it’s war.”
Agreed. At present, every “culture” on Earth happens to involve killing the neighbors (or at least threatening them with violence, e.g. “arrest and incarceration”) and taking their stuff (”taxation”). How would a libertarian society deal with immigration from any country then?
“Some of your objections might be better addressed by picking up a copy of The Ungoverned or some other anarcho-capitalist fiction (David Friedman has a list in his book). At least they might help stimulate your thinking on some of these issues.”
I have read some of L. Neil Smith’s market-capitalist fiction (e.g. The Probability Broach, Pallas, etc.). They’re good stories, IMO, and they make MC society look great, but then it’s easy to make a society work in fiction. I would like to see some evidence that it could work here, in the real world, states and all. Either it can survive in competition with governments, or it can’t. If it can, let’s try it. If it can’t, it’s an invalid theory and should be abandoned in favor of a strategy with some chance of success.
“Of course the “imposition” of “common sense” regulation will amount to aggression, at which point the private defence agencies would be forced to step in. You can argue that perhaps defence agencies will be inherently unstable, prone to turning into governments, etc, but I think you’re pretty naive to assume that a bunch of statists can just move in to a libertarian society and start running things the way they want without encountering any resistance at all.”
I never said they’d encounter no resistance at all. I’m just skeptical (based on the performance of L/libertarians in general) that they’d meet any *effective, organized* resistance. L/libertarians for the most part seem to willingly accept the cost/benefit package of American (or other gov’t) “citizenship” rather than face the challenges of setting up a freeport somewhere, or living offshore on ships, etc. Judging by this, it’s probably a fairly safe bet that a lot of people in a libertarian society would prefer “common sense regulation” to war, “immigrant-style” or otherwise. As long as the regulations are the least bit tolerable. Otherwise, there would be market-anarchist skyscrapers going up in Kisimaayo.
Collectivists are just plain better at mobilizing forces and “killing/dying for the cause” (the nation, Allah, etc.) than individualists. IMO this gives them such a huge military advantage that collectives can easily shoulder the massive waste and inefficiencies of government, without finding themselves being handily outdone by super-efficient free-market defense agencies. I wish it wasn’t so.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 12:14 pm
Can you point to one development over the past fifty years, anywhere in the world, that made you optimistic?
I became a libertarian. :)
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 12:20 pm
If you can’t see Rockwell, Hoppe and Company for the fascist, bigoted, theocratic nutbars that they are, then there’s nothing I can do to help you.
No, I’m afraid I have some trouble seeing it. Aside from their views on immigration (which are fairly common I’d say), they seem to be ordinary libertarians to me. Or are you suggesting market anarchists are nutballs? In that case I’d have to ask if you think Roderick Long is also a nutball, since you intimated he might not be one in your post?
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 1:13 pm
I wish they could.
One point made by ancaps like Friedman (Caplan?) is that government and anarchy might be stable equilibriums among the set of possible social orders. If that’s the case, then the fact that an anarchist society has not been able to form isn’t directly relevant to how well they would do once they do form. The analogous situation there might be a bunch of people trying to form a “United States Government” while the continent was overrun with private defense agencies. :)
There are also biological and cultural reasons for why government persists, I think, but I’m sure there are probably others as well. On the other hand, it might be that libertarians “acting in concert” are not necessary for an ancap system to come about; maybe seasteading would lead to something like that for instance. There are lots of possibilities. :)
How would a libertarian society deal with immigration from any country then?
Well obviously they would only act to defend against organized groups of such people, since individually they would be the same as criminals or murderers are in our present society. The probability of a state launching a “sneak attack” by overwhelming the anarchist society with disguised soldiers would be proportional to how secret they can keep it I guess (which I don’t think is likely). Or the immigrants might eventually see anarchist society as superior once they marry and have kids and settle down somewhere. A final important factor which I think you’ve overlooked is that an ancap society will not be completely devoid of public property. If nothing else, streets corners and such would have to be public to enable people to walk to each other’s stores. So if an anarchist area has a bunch of foreign, jobless rioters in the street smashing buildings and tearing stuff down, I don’t think people would just stand by and let it happen. Anarchist societies will be composed of human beings with common sense, you know. :)
Otherwise, there would be market-anarchist skyscrapers going up in Kisimaayo.
Come on, they had a government that collapsed into feuding warlords. This is not “market anarchist society” to me.
IMO this gives them such a huge military advantage that collectives can easily shoulder the massive waste and inefficiencies of government, without finding themselves being handily outdone by super-efficient free-market defense agencies. I wish it wasn’t so.
If that’s true then the only solution would be for market anarchist defense agencies to induce similar behavior in their own forces (”loyalty would still exist in anarcho-capitalism” is a theme in one of those ancap stories David Friedman lists in his book), or else use technology to give them a superior edge. If you think about it, technology has even significantly changed the way governments battle each other. For example, militants in Iraq or other muslim countries are willing to “sacrifice themselves for Allah”, whereas US servicemen are generally able to avoid a lot of the battlezone intensity by bombing from the air or sending surface-to-air missiles at the enemy.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 1:31 pm
I became a libertarian. :)
Cute. And seriously, can you?
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 1:44 pm
In that case I’d have to ask if you think Roderick Long is also a nutball, since you intimated he might not be one in your post?
What are you talking about? Who is Roderick Long and what does he have to do with anything I said?
Aside from their views on immigration (which are fairly common I’d say), they seem to be ordinary libertarians to me.
Well, if you consider ordinary libertarians to be people who support stoning homosexuals to death (Gary Noth, Rockwell’s buddy); who think the bordres whould be shut sealed, after they got in, of course (Hoppe); who claim that the murder of six million Jews during WWII is a myth propagated by the Jews and the Zionists (Sobran, another one of Rockwell’s close friends); who claim that gays, atheists, and other immoralists should be driven to the Sahara or Antarctica (Hoppe); who believe that evolution is nothing but a conspiracy of leftists and that all scientists are quacks (Hoppe, Rockewell, Sobran, North, and the rest of the zoo); then I guess you are right.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 1:53 pm
And just in case it wasn’t sufficiently clear, I consider anyone who is not a free-market anarchist to be a nutball. Ergo, Walter Block is the only true sane, libertarian affiliate of the Mises Zoo.
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 3:28 pm
Cute. And seriously, can you?
Man, you’re no fun.
What are you talking about?
Obviously something beyond your ability to comprehend, or to google.
Well, if you consider ordinary libertarians to be people who support stoning homosexuals to death (Gary Noth, Rockwell’s buddy); who think the bordres whould be shut sealed, after they got in, of course (Hoppe); who claim that the murder of six million Jews during WWII is a myth propagated by the Jews and the Zionists (Sobran, another one of Rockwell’s close friends); who claim that gays, atheists, and other immoralists should be driven to the Sahara or Antarctica (Hoppe);
If true, those are certainly serious indictments of the supposed free-market orientations of Gary North, Sobran, and Hoppe. I don’t really care to read North or Sobran, so you’d have to provide a specific citation for them. On Hoppe, all I know is that he was quoted from one of his books as saying homosexuals would have to be removed from private covenants which made certain religious/traditional values a precondition of membership. That doesn’t sound particularly odious to me, although one could of course debate how large and powerful collectives/covenants/communities should be. Certainly it’s not a call to “chase gays to Antarctica”. And as for Rockwell, does the phrase “guilt by association” mean anything to you? You might want to argue Rockwell is a racist in league with Hoppe, since that seems to be the most popular argument to make.
who believe that evolution is nothing but a conspiracy of leftists and that all scientists are quacks (Hoppe, Rockewell, Sobran, North, and the rest of the zoo); then I guess you are right.
I’m not aware of any columns from any of them claiming evolution is false, but perhaps you could provide some citations? North is a Christian fundamentalist-type, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he held such views. Hoppe I think is on record as accepting evolution as a valid theory. Perhaps you’re confusing rejection of evolution with rejection of public funding and administration of science research and schooling?
April 16th, 2006 at Apr 16, 06 | 4:55 pm
Stefan,
Let me explain something to you that your weak mind cannot grasp: members of The Zoo use free-market-like arguments to mask their bigotry. They take arguments that are in-and-of themsleves legitimate, then extend them to fit their sick world view.
On Hoppe, all I know is that he was quoted from one of his books as saying homosexuals would have to be removed from private covenants which made certain religious/traditional values a precondition of membership.
Hoppe did indeed begin his argument by talking about private communities. So far, so good. But he then continued by claiming that all gays, perpetual bachelors, and other “immoralists” are a menace to society and should be driven to the Sahara. He was treading the line between the right to discriminate on private property and straight-out fascism. How can you argue with me if you haven’t reads his books? All you have is hearsay. And what about his view on immigration? Have you read any of his writings on that?
Perhaps you’re confusing rejection of evolution with rejection of public funding and administration of science research and schooling?
No I don’t. They claim both. The second is legitimate, the first bullshit. Again, an attempt to get two for one, to wrap idiocy with libertarianism. Those who are indiscriminate and mentally dull like you fall for it.
And as for Rockwell, does the phrase “guilt by association” mean anything to you?
I knew you’d use the guilt by association argument. It is a common tactic among pseudo-intellectual ignoramuses, who are unaware that guilt by association and ad hominem attacks are justified and legitimate under certain circumstances.
North wrote over 400 articles for lewrockwell.com, a site owned, operated, and edited by Rockwell himself. Guilt by association is perfectly legitimate in this case, unless you are dumb enough to claim that Rockwell is merely a publisher, and that “The opinions expressed here do not represent the …” disclaimer is in play.
Same goes for Sobran. You may choose to stick you head in your ass and invoke the guilt by association argument again, but every moral, un-bigoted person would have distanced himself from this neo-Nazi a long time ago.
By the way, “Stefan”, are you Stephan Kinsella writing under a pen-name? The glib-yet-inane lawyer-ish arguments sound all too familiar.
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 1:09 am
Let me explain something to you that your weak mind cannot grasp: members of The Zoo use free-market-like arguments to mask their bigotry.
And I’m supposed to give you more credibility because … you called me a weak-minded fool? Hmm, I wonder if that’s been tried before…
So far, so good. But he then continued by claiming that all gays, perpetual bachelors, and other “immoralists” are a menace to society and should be driven to the Sahara. He was treading the line between the right to discriminate on private property and straight-out fascism. How can you argue with me if you haven’t reads his books? All you have is hearsay.
In the detailed discussion of the book here at no-treason the only disputed passage any of Hoppe’s opponents exhibited was the one about private convenants. If there were even more incriminating passage later I would have expected those to have been presented. Perhaps since you’re obviously a lot smarter than I am you could provide me with the citation?
And what about his view on immigration? Have you read any of his writings on that?
His views on immigration are quite ordinary and typical of the average American who wants closed-borders. I’m sorry, but someone who is a libertarian in every way except on one particular issue does not a “fascist” make. Feel free to provide me with a citation to illustrate your point, oh brilliant one.
The second is legitimate, the first bullshit. Again, an attempt to get two for one, to wrap idiocy with libertarianism. Those who are indiscriminate and mentally dull like you fall for it.
Hmm, still no citations forthcoming… I guess I must be really dumb, because I can’t seem to read the copious footnotes and citations referencing even one essay by Rockwell illustrating your claims. Maybe I need new glasses instead?
I knew you’d use the guilt by association argument.
You mean you’re the one using the “guilt by association” argument, right? Then I would be the one engaged in misidentifying an instance of such argumentation? But of course such subtle points are easy for a brilliant mind like yours to comprehend.
It is a common tactic among pseudo-intellectual ignoramuses, who are unaware that guilt by association and ad hominem attacks are justified and legitimate under certain circumstances.
Like in this one, I’m guessing…?
North wrote over 400 articles for lewrockwell.com, a site owned, operated, and edited by Rockwell himself. Guilt by association is perfectly legitimate in this case, unless you are dumb enough to claim that Rockwell is merely a publisher, and that “The opinions expressed here do not represent the …” disclaimer is in play.
You seem to be advocating the view that if X allows Y to publish then X agrees with most of what Y believes. Correct me oh wise one, but isn’t that… bullshit? Or are you the one who needs glasses to read the fine print on that disclaimer? :)
Same goes for Sobran. You may choose to stick you head in your ass and invoke the guilt by association argument again, but every moral, un-bigoted person would have distanced himself from this neo-Nazi a long time ago.
It’s “your”, not “you” by the way, oh enlightened one.
So I guess JTK should “distance” himself by not allowing you to comment anymore, since any moral person wouldn’t engage in pointless name-calling? I think I’m starting to catch on now, slow-witted person that I am.
By the way, “Stefan”, are you Stephan Kinsella writing under a pen-name? The glib-yet-inane lawyer-ish arguments sound all too familiar.
I don’t think Kinsella would conclude by quoting John Lopez:
Further, if you really are correct, why not just prove me wrong? Why not provide a simple, direct answer to my simple, direct questions?
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 1:57 am
So I guess JTK should “distance” himself by not allowing you to comment anymore, since any moral person wouldn’t engage in pointless name-calling?
Your inability to distinguish “pointless name-calling” from avid anti-Semitism and from the despicable claim that the Holocaust is a Jewish conspiracy illustrates your stupidity. So does pointing to a simple typo in lieu of a legitimate argument. JTK, unlike Rockwell, does not edit and review content on this site pre-posting. It is open to all, although he may ban whomever he wishes.
You seem to be advocating the view that if X allows Y to publish then X agrees with most of what Y believes. Correct me oh wise one, but isn’t that… bullshit? Or are you the one who needs glasses to read the fine print on that disclaimer? :)
First of all, what’s with the infantile smiley face? How old are you?
Secondly, if Y published 400+ articles on a site that is a one-man operation, where the editor/owner reads, edits, and picks each article himself, then, yes, you have a case in claiming that there may be some, shall we say, ideological affinity between the two.
You mean you’re the one using the “guilt by association” argument, right? Then I would be the one engaged in misidentifying an instance of such argumentation? But of course such subtle points are easy for a brilliant mind like yours to comprehend.
Again, pseudo-intellectual balderdash in lieu of a serious argument. If person X surrounds himself with a group of bigots and fascists, and for years publishes hundreds of essays by these maniacs, then the guilt by association argument is justified and legitimate. I am using it and you correctly identified it, but it seems like you have yet to realize what a legitimate guilt by associaton argument is.
It is clear you don’t read much, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking for citations. All I have written is patently evident to anyone who reads libertarian and pseudo-libertarian literature on a regular basis.
As great a philosopher as John Lopez may be (whoever the hell he is), let me quote Nietzsche instead:
“There they stand,” said he to his heart; “there they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears.
That’s exactly why I did not want to get into this argument. I remember you as an idiot from our last exchange a few months ago. I am not the mouth to your ears. Go watch sports, reality TV, or something more suitable to your level.
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 2:06 am
PS,
His views on immigration are quite ordinary and typical of the average American who wants closed-borders.
You’re right, for a change. However, you are forgetting (or are unaware) that the average American is a fascist. And since when is a comparison to the dumb animal known as the “average American” a valid defense?
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 11:56 am
PPS
His views on immigration are quite ordinary and typical of the average American who wants closed-borders.
Since you seem to be an expert on spelling and grammar, you should note that there is no need for the hyphen between closed and borders.
a hyphen would have been necessary if you were saying something like “he has a closed-borders mentality”.
Don’t worry, it’s a typical error for those who seldom read but like to write.
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 1:48 pm
Ryan, were you ever planning to offer any kind of support for the argument you have made? Do you have any evidence whatsoever for the claims you have made against Hoppe?
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 1:51 pm
Or were you hoping that your fuming vitriol would drown out Stefan’s attempts to address you in a calm and rational manner?
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 4:52 pm
Anarchist -
Let’s start with this: Have you read “Democracy: the God that failed?”
If you haven’t, then this argument is futile.
April 17th, 2006 at Apr 17, 06 | 8:26 pm
Macker:
“In the first case a policy could distinguish between particular immigrants, and in the second case a policy could use forced emigration.”
How do you propose to distinguish between immigrants who will and will not use your preferred “investment” strategies with regards to their offspring? Either you impose this as a prior restraint upon their action, thereby violating the presumption of innocence, or you have to wait until they start raising children to see whether they do so as you would prefer. The first way is unlibertarian, the second is unfeasible as an immigration restriction, and could only be used as a basis for deportation. How, then, would you decide what parenting strategies are required to prevent deportation?
“…it is much harder to kick someone out than to keep them from coming in.”
I fail to see any reason why that should be true. The US has 16,000 miles of unfortified borders. It’s very difficult to keep people from entering the USA.
“That’s especially true when you have a uniform culture, since you can distinguish people by their accents, behavior, and other traits.”
But we don’t have a “uniform culture.” I work in downtown San Francisco, with people from India, Eastern Europe, China, & Latin America, as well as my fellow Euro-Americans. Which of these criteria could be applied to the population of San Francisco to determine whom to allow to enter the country at SFO or not?
“…Using your reasoning we could not prevent criminals from immigrating to this country…”
If a criminal is someone who has been convicted of a crime in US court, then it’s literally impossible to keep anyone with such a conviction from immigrating to the US, as no immigrant to the US could possibly have such a conviction. They would have had to have been in the US in order to have been convicted of any crime by any US court. What you propose to do is to use criminal convictions in foreign courts as a basis for immigration restriction. That presumes that foreign criminal jurisductions are trustworthy. Is that really a presumption that you want to make?
“The inclusiveness could also be resolved by policy if you are willing to banish and deport even criminal citizens.”
How would you prevent them from re-entering the country, perhaps hidden inside bales of cocaine?
“I believe the first step should be to correct our bad internal policies such a welfare and social security, before we go to more open immigration. As long as those policies are in place there is no reason not to filter immigrants based on the likelihood they will exploit the system.”
On the contrary, as long as welfare & SS can be reserved for (mostly) white people only, there will not be sufficient pressure to reform those systems along more libertarian lines.
As for your take on Somalia, you simply don’t understand Somali culture. The fact that Somalis are Moslem does not mean that the Somali clans impose Islamic law and its attendant social restrictions upon clan members. Somali tribal law (the Xeer) predates Islam, and has nothing to do with Islam. The Xeer doesn’t impose the social restrictions to which you refer. I knew a libertarian who married into a Somali clan, and he said he’d never felt freer in his entire life.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 12:28 am
To annoy the annoying Ryan H. even more, I will terminate every paragraph of this post with a smiley. :)
It is clear you don’t read much, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking for citations. All I have written is patently evident to anyone who reads libertarian and pseudo-libertarian literature on a regular basis.
For something that’s “patently obvious” you sure seem to feel a lot of insults and sarcasm are necessary to convey the point. :)
Or were you hoping that your fuming vitriol would drown out Stefan’s attempts to address you in a calm and rational manner?
Ryan H. is certainly skilled at the fuming vitriol. I could point out that he still has not satisfied my simple, direct request for citations illustrating the “fascist” character of Rockwell and Hoppe. I could also ask why he feels it’s acceptable for him to offer ad hominem attacks against me in lieu of an argument, but not acceptable for me to dodge “legitimate argument” myself, but I think Ryan H. has effectively eviscerated his credibility without my help. :)
Let’s start with this: Have you read “Democracy: the God that failed?”
If you haven’t, then this argument is futile.
I ordered the book today. Since Your Brilliance doesn’t seem to feel the need to provide quotations or citations or references or… well, anything really, I guess I’ll get it straight from the horse’s mouth. :)
You’re right, for a change. However, you are forgetting (or are unaware) that the average American is a fascist. And since when is a comparison to the dumb animal known as the “average American” a valid defense?
I perceived you as singling Hoppe out for moral ridicule, but I suppose it would also be consistent for you to ridicule most Americans as well. I’d certainly be more comfortable living next to the “average American” in an anarchy than a walking acid-spewing spigot like yourself. :)
As great a philosopher as John Lopez may be
You keep bragging about how well-read you are in libertarian literature, but you don’t even know who Roderick Long is? And Lopez practically led the anti-Hoppe side in the no-treason.com debates on the subject. I’m sorry, you’ll have to come up with something better than “Every well-read libertarian knows…”, when evidently you yourself don’t seem especially well-read. :)
That’s exactly why I did not want to get into this argument. I remember you as an idiot from our last exchange a few months ago. I am not the mouth to your ears. Go watch sports, reality TV, or something more suitable to your level.
Hmm, I’m afraid I don’t remember you at all. Doe anyone else think that maybe Ryan H. is a sock puppet for the angry and deranged Mike Schneider? And I’m afraid I don’t really enjoy sports or reality TV. Reading Shakespeare or Virgil is more my speed. :)
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 1:29 am
I’d certainly be more comfortable living next to the “average American” in an anarchy than a walking acid-spewing spigot like yourself. :)
Let’s ignore the rest of the crap and concentrate on this, because this is really interesting. It also explains your optimism. Saying something like that is ridiculous, because the average American (or German, or Thai, or Mexican, or whoever) does not want anarchy, freedom, or capitalism. If he did, then we’d have those already. Talking about living next to the average American in an anarchy is like describing a triangle with five sides – it is unfathomable, and it cannot and will not happen. You may blame government all you want, but the truth is that Average Joe, not government per se, is the reason for most of our troubles.
Now, I may be a spigot of verbal acid, but I respect freedom and liberty much more than your Average Joe. In an anarchy, I may be a less-than-a-friendly neighbor, but I’ll never as much as steal your newspaper. Average Joe, being the stupid, cowardly, violent beast that he is, will always oppose anarchy, because in an anarchy he will no longer have the legal permission to steal from you. Your optimism is not grounded in reality. Read Mencken’s “Notes on Democracy” and Bastiat’s “Voluntary Servitude” for a more comprehensive treatment of Average Joe.
The biggest problem that you may face is admitting that you are an Average Joe yourself, which explains why you feel at home amongst the masses.
but I suppose it would also be consistent for you to ridicule most Americans as well
Absolutely! I cannot ridicule Average Joe enough. To quote Mencken, no one has ever lost money overestimating the stupidity of the average man. That is exactly why I despise Hoppe – I expected more of him, and disappointment is correlated to expectations. I have no expectations of the average man.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 1:35 am
For something that’s “patently obvious” you sure seem to feel a lot of insults and sarcasm are necessary to convey the point. :)
Not necessary, but they add spice. The snack to go along with the protein. You have your infantile smileys, I have my sarcasm and vitriol. :)
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 4:06 pm
Now, I may be a spigot of verbal acid, but I respect freedom and liberty much more than your Average Joe.
Words are the manner in which our thoughts go clothed in the world, bitch.
The biggest problem that you may face is admitting that you are an Average Joe yourself, which explains why you feel at home amongst the masses.
Well I’m an anarchist-libertarian, and since the average person isn’t, I guess that means you’re wrong.
Not necessary, but they add spice. The snack to go along with the protein.
So you admit taking pleasure from insulting and putting down others? You wouldn’t happen to be single by any chance?
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 4:28 pm
Fuck off, Stefan.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 4:39 pm
So you admit taking pleasure from insulting and putting down others?
If it’s funny and witty, and makes fun of scum, sure. I’ve learned from the best - Mencken.
You wouldn’t happen to be single by any chance?
Like all great men in history, I am. Mencken, Nock (got married, but deserted his family), Nietzsche, Spencer, Thoreau, and others - I’m in good company! It is the third-rate men (you’re married, I suppose?) who get married. Read Mencken’s “In Defense of Women”, and don’t forget to take out the garbage, hubby.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 5:24 pm
Words are the manner in which our thoughts go clothed in the world, bitch.
Getting touchy, Stefie? Why the invective, considering that words are the manner in which our thoughts go clothed in the world?
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 7:26 pm
“Not only medieval Iceland, but also medieval Ireland, certain Native American tribes, and a few other societies. As much as I despise the Mises Institute, the Journal of Libertarian Studies had a great article about that. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the exact reference. “
That’s not what I’d call a track record. I wasn’t claiming no anarchist societies ever existed. I am already aware of Iceland, and basically consider any clan based society to be anarchist.
“Read it and maybe you’ll learn something.”
I may read it and I am sure I’ll learn something but probably not what you’d think I would.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 7:41 pm
Stefan,
I guess that’s your way of saying you didn’t have one. Are you feeling insecure or something. Picking on my typos isn’t exactly making me impressed with you.
Well anarchist societies have had some trouble forming, mainly due to the iron boot that the state currently holds on everyone’s face. I’m optimistic however for the future. Go, medieval Iceland! :)
You know that my position is that I have no proof that anarchism can’t work only that they don’t. One of the reasons they don’t is the iron boot. Problem I have is that the iron boot can kick anarchist communities from the outside too even after they have been formed.
My position is identical to P.T. Galt on this. He sounds like my sock puppet. I think he is kicking your collective asses, err, sorry, anarchist asses. :)
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 8:26 pm
Maybe if you mastered punctuation your comprehension would go up. :) [to Brian Macker]
Come on, Stefie, that’s not nice. Aren’t you supposed to be the civilized one amongst us, the one who is rational and polite? Why is that OK for you and not for me? By the way, it was you who started with the name calling during our previous conversation. So, you are a hypocrite in addition to being an idiot, and your best arguments seem to be finding typos in your opponents’ arguments.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 8:58 pm
Stefan,
Not if the choices come bundled.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 9:33 pm
Macker: Picking on my typos isn’t exactly making me impressed with you.
I wasn’t aware impressing you was a requirement.
Ryan H: Aren’t you supposed to be the civilized one amongst us, the one who is rational and polite?
Macker and I fling barbs at each other all the time, but even if we were serious you’d still be an asshole by comparison.
By the way, it was you who started with the name calling during our previous conversation.
I see, so calling someone a fool and worse isn’t name-calling?
and your best arguments seem to be finding typos in your opponents’ arguments.
And your best arguments involve making unsubstantiated assertions that “any well-read libertarian” knows? On that basis I’m faring quite a bit better. :)
Sabotta: Fuck off, Stefan.
Perhaps I was wrong, and Ryan H. is Sabotta’s sock-puppet after all? Nah, no creepy sexual innuendo, he’s definitely a Schneider sock-puppet.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 9:35 pm
Come on, Stefie, that’s not nice.
And by the way, apologies to the editors for feeding the troll, but it was just one of those days and I couldn’t resist poking him a bit. I’m sure he’ll calm down once he bites the heads off of a few “Average Joes” or something.
April 18th, 2006 at Apr 18, 06 | 11:29 pm
Is Average Joe kosher?
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 12:16 am
One final note (on this, at least):
I hereby retract my unkind remark (”As great a philosopher as John Lopez may be [whoever the hell he is]”) about John Lopez. I’ve read some of his articles and he’s doing a great job documenting and attacking the ideological sewer known as LRC.
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 1:06 am
How cute, Ryan H./Mike Schneider has made a new friend! (Just kidding, Schneider hates Lopez). :)
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 1:35 am
Note to Ryan H. : Since LRC is basically an advertisement for the Camino Coin Shop, True Blue Confederate Lew is mostly just making sure to maximize his customer base. For his sponsor’s sake, he can hardly afford to annoy the crypto-Nazis.
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 1:38 am
Tim,
One common non-bigotted argument is that poor immigrants overload the welfare state and are a net cost to current taxpayers.
I also think the premise that America is collectively owned by citizens is non-bigotted, and it is the crucial premise that must be refuted.
And I just don’t get as excited about bigotry as many do. Bigotry in itself is a vice, not a crime. People are entitled to do as they see fit with their own property even for bigotted reasons, aren’t they? The crucial question is about where their property begins and ends.
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 1:45 am
Stefie, you paranoid fool! Is it so hard for you to believe that I am not the only one who thinks you’re a moron, that you make yourself believe that we are all the same person wearing different sock puppets?
April 19th, 2006 at Apr 19, 06 | 1:48 am
Rad,
No such general case exists. It’s perfectly legitimate to use force to keep anyone you like off of your own property, even if your reasons for for doing so are bigotted.