For Immediate Release
January 27, 2017
Contact: Carla Howell, media [at] LP [dot] org or (202) 333-0008 x 222
The Libertarian Party welcomes peaceful people into this country and is the only political party that is still willing to stand up for the values inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Libertarian Party Chair, Nicholas Sarwark, says, “When we erect barriers to peaceful immigration or contemplate restricting immigration based on characteristics such as religious beliefs, we desecrate the noblest of principles this country was founded upon. This isn’t just about immigrants and refugees. This is about who we are as Americans.”
He continues: “In the Libertarian Party, we stand for ‘liberty and justice for all.’ Not just American citizens. Not just those who were born here. Not just those of a certain background. Not just those of a certain skin color. Not just those of a certain religion.”
The Libertarian Party’s position is that anyone who is peaceful should be allowed to enter the United States.
###
Oops, meant to post this in this thread (posted in a different one first):
Kudos to dL and LibertyDave for hanging in there. Personally, refuting the same exact BS talking points from the migrant bashers over and over endlessly in multiple threads has become way too old. It’s just like talking to brick walls, which they want to encase us all in (talk about a prison planet). OpenBorders.info has all the answers and it’s really too bad more people have not taken the time to explore that site, there’s a lot there.
“dL
February 11, 2017 at 02:38
‘Funny how everyone but certain libertarians can understand demographics.’
Well, if u are referring to me, i do have a math degree and passed a number of SoA exams back in the day. Anytime you want to discuss advanced concepts in calculus-based prob & stats, feel free to chime in, oh knowledgeable one.”
That’s great. You sound like a smart guy. You do know that even intelligent people make bad decisions, and that a person can be talented in one area, and less talented in other areas.
Should we use advanced calculus to solve 1 + 1 = 2 ?
Translation: your point of view is only valid if you use advanced calculus to come to a conclusion even though advanced calculus won’t help in formulating a valid conclusion because it has absolutely nothing to do with what is being argued.
oh, i don’t William, given that demographics== statistical inference from data relating to the population/population groups, knowledge of prob & stats might have some relevance. Actuarial science is the study of insurance risk inference from population demographics. And you can’t be one w/o loading up on a ton of math. And when there is real money on the line, the bullshit walks.
“Well, if u are referring to me, i do have a math degree and passed a number of SoA exams back in the day. Anytime you want to discuss advanced concepts in calculus-based prob & stats, feel free to chime in, oh knowledgeable one.”
Relevance?
Would you like for us to marvel at your (unquestionable) brilliance?
Well, if u are referring to me, i do have a math degree and passed a number of SoA exams back in the day. Anytime you want to discuss advanced concepts in calculus-based prob & stats, feel free to chime in, oh knowledgeable one.
Funny how everyone but certain libertarians can understand demographics.
Changing Demographics and the 2016 Election
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042715/changing-demographics-and-2016-election.asp
From the article: ”
Broadly, demographics study the characteristic makeup of a specific population. Government and corporations use demographics to learn about factors including race, sex, economic level, political leaning, etc. for a selected population. These demographics are then used to determine the group’s needs. For instance, a marketing firm will use demographics to understand how to appeal to a certain customer. Demographics are constantly changing, and in terms of politics, a change in demographics can lead to drastically different voting patterns.
Unlike non-governmental corporations, political organizations use demographics to sell a person or group rather than a product. Regardless of Republican, Democrat or other affiliations, political groups need demographics to understand how to appeal to national, state and local voting blocs.”
How many right wing snowflakes does it take to find a logical fallacy?
At least Five.
One to commit it. Another to whine about it. A third to deny it. A fourth to forget about it. Finally, a fifth to claim it came from the other side.
“LibertyDave
February 10, 2017 at 21:52
So, I show how Andy’s private property arguments are wrong and that the immigration ban is an attack on free trade and he tries to hijack another thread with his immigration rants.”
That’s ridiculous. People can still trade without lots of foreign people entering a land territory, getting on welfare, and becoming citizens and voting.
“Now lets examine his argument that immigrants are the cause of gun control laws being passed. In California the ratio of immigrants to natural born citizens is about 1 in 5. So even if all immigrants voted for gun control, which is doubtful, they couldn’t pass gun control on their own. Trying to lay the blame on immigrants alone is dishonest. I required the help of a lot more natural born citizens than there are immigrants.”
1) I NEVER said that gun control laws only passed because of immigrants. I said that immigration CONTRIBUTED to gun control laws passing in California. There was a gun control initiative that qualified for the ballot in California back in the late 1970’s that got voted down, but that was back before California went through its wild shift in demographics via mass immigration.
2) You are forgetting about the OFFSPRING of immigrants. Studies indicate that the offspring of immigrants are also likely to vote for more socialist programs and more gun control.
“what the fuck do you think demographics refers to?”
Ummm . . . . maybe demographics?
“You truly are as dumb as a KellyAnne Conway press conference.”
(More ad hominem) I’m not the one committing logical fallacies and misrepresentations. That would be you.
“If I hurt your feelings, too bad.”
I’m thinking it’s the other way around. You seem upset I called you out on your logical fallacies, and so now you’re lashing out with even more.
So, I show how Andy’s private property arguments are wrong and that the immigration ban is an attack on free trade and he tries to hijack another thread with his immigration rants.
Now lets examine his argument that immigrants are the cause of gun control laws being passed. In California the ratio of immigrants to natural born citizens is about 1 in 5. So even if all immigrants voted for gun control, which is doubtful, they couldn’t pass gun control on their own. Trying to lay the blame on immigrants alone is dishonest. I required the help of a lot more natural born citizens than there are immigrants.
Maybe there is another reason gun control is passing in places where it had a hard time in the past. That reason is the Department of Education. In the two generations since the Department of Education was created we have seen the disarmament of schools making them easy targets for crazy people. And the installation of metal detectors in schools to hammer home the government propaganda that guns are bad. It’s a wonder that it has taken this long for gun control advocates to start passing their agenda.
Well, in a thread about immigrations and restrictions on immigration, what the fuck do you think demographics refers to? When the person who brought it up has used that exact argument against immigration about 1000 freakin times? You truly are as dumb as a KellyAnne Conway press conference. If I hurt your feelings, too bad. Lay off the right-wing noise machine for about a month, pick up “Introduction to Statistics, A Calculus-Based Approach,” read chapters 1-6, and then come back for a clear-headed debate on population statistical inference, if that’s your supposed cup of tea…
Perhaps you should look in the mirror regarding the “learning disability” diagnosis if you truly believe “They’re afraid of talking about such things (demographics) because it might cause others to label them as ‘racist'” is the same as “the open borders position is only held lest one be called a bigot/racist.”
It’s funny how you continue to commit logical fallacies while denying that you ever did.
True. However, that accusation directed at at me is a fallacious one that can be verified by anyone as without merit by merely reading my many comments in this thread. Then again because you have demonstrated a learning disability aphasia in regards to reading/understanding your own writing, I certainly don’t expect you to be able to follow anyone else’s argument. Of course, it also goes without saying that if someone is a bigot or demonstrates characteristics of a bigot, then calling said someone a bigot is not an exercise of a logical fallacy.
Hmmm…in a previous comment you wrote:
You either have a learning disability, suffer from dementia or graduated from the Kellyanne Conway School of public speech/writing. Now while anyone one of those aforementioned conditions might be a plus at someplace like Breitbart, they’re generally not going to be of much benefit here. People here can read.
When you engage in name calling and go after people rather than ideas you are committing the ad hominem fallacy.
I think you just revealed your problem:
“your argument being that the open borders position is only held lest one be called a bigot/racist.”
That was never said. You have a problem with misrepresenting other points of view and so that causes you to engage in ad hominem rather than dispute ideas for their substance. Do you truly understand the point of view others are putting forward on this thread?
Snowflake, I don’t think you know the meaning of the term. ya see, when you accuse someone of being scared to talk about demographics and immigration, but that someone does talk about immigration and demographics, though not in the way you want to talk about it, that’s not an ad hominem attack. Instead, that’s a premise falsification demonstration. It’s an indication your argument is unsound, your argument being that the open borders position is only held lest one be called a bigot/racist. Clearly, you have called me those things, and clearly I don’t give a rat’s ass and will not back down from my position. So, you need a new argument than the old tired, right-wing refrain of leftist PC. You see, it is a trivial exercise to demonstrate the right-wingers are rife w/ rightest PC and victimhood identity politics, and that ultimately, the right wing position on border control boils down to trying to use the power of the state to limit the mobility and free trade of people that don’ t share the supposed cultural heritage that they do. In the old days, one might refer to this position as simple xenophobia. But the right wingers have longed learned to wrap it in a language of victimhood identity to avoid having their feelings hurt. Clearly, they are very sensitive about being called that.
Andy
I am glad to see that you understand the concept of easements. But your statement: “Yes, I am well aware of the concept of easements. Sure, you can have an easement to travel from point A to point B, but this has NOTHING to do with immigration,” is dead wrong about immigration, it has everything to do with immigration, as I will explain.
You stated that one person can’t stop another person from traveling from point A to point B. According to Libertarian philosophy what is wrong for one person to do is also wrong for a group of people to do. Even if traveling from point A to point B involves crossing a border and that group calls themselves the government.
Just because you don’t want to do business with immigrants doesn’t mean everyone in the US doesn’t want to do business with immigrants. And you advocating closing borders means that you are interfering with free trade by denying the right to travel. Not very Libertarian of you now is it.
DL continues with ad hominem attacks. Big surprise!
Nah, i would be happy to talk about the demographic threat of low-rent white trash to my liberty. A typical Trump rally had the demo makeup of a lot Social security/medicare welfare snowflakes clamoring for more welfare statism. Trump had the biggest edge w/ older, white, less educated folk. if they have their way, they will be the last generation to suck from the teat of the unfunded liability. Once they die off, maybe the world can resume to be a better place.
William Saturn
February 9, 2017 at 19:28
“I am really surprised, and disappointed, that there are so many self proclaimed libertarians out there who are too afraid to talk about demographics.”
Not surprising. They’re afraid of talking about such things because it might cause others to label them as ‘racist.'”
Or xenophobe or bigot or some other nasty sounding name.
The funny thing is that our political enemies sure do study demographics and statistical trends, and they use this data for their benefit.
“I am really surprised, and disappointed, that there are so many self proclaimed libertarians out there who are too afraid to talk about demographics.”
Not surprising. They’re afraid of talking about such things because it might cause others to label them as “racist.”
“LibertyDave
February 9, 2017 at 13:45
Saying that open borders will raise your taxes to expand welfare is like claiming going to the hospital will causes people to die. Neither of these statements is true.”
This is EXACTLY what is happening right now, and has been happening for quite a while in this country.
There are probably at least a few libertarians in every country on the planet. If these libertarians around the world were the only ones immigrating to the USA then a lot of these problems would disappear (of course it would be bad for liberty in the countries were these people are leaving), but this is not want is happening. The statistics clearly indicate that a super-majority of modern day immigrants favor big government.
Do you people think that the gun grabbers are not following these demographic trends? You don’t think that they do not want to INTENTIONALLY alter the demographics of the country to favor their gun grabbing agenda? I bet that they are salivating for the day when the demographic studies indicate that pro-gun rights Americans are the minority.
The same people who want to take away gun rights in this country also want to flood the country with immigrants from countries that have NO CONCEPT of the right to keep and bear arms, or of having a limited government.
Can’t you people see how immigration is being used as a WEAPON to strip us of our right to keep and bear arms?
Look at what happened in California last year. The legislature passed several new gun control laws, and the Governor signed them into law, and then in November, there was a gun control ballot initiative that was voted on and it passed with 63% of the vote.
Believe it or not, California used to be a pro-gun rights majority state. This was before mass immigration wildly changed the demographics of the state.
Nevada has been a pro-gun rights majority state, up until recently. There was a gun control ballot initiative placed on the ballot there (which received funding from former New York City mayor, Micheal Bloomberg), which was voted on this November, and it passed by a narrow margin. The initiative lost in every county in Nevada, with the exception of Clark County, which is by far the most populated county in the state. Clark County also happens to be the county which has the highest percentage of immigrants.
Am I implying that all immigrants are bad people, or that no immigrants really believe in freedom? No, there are of course exceptions to every rule. I am saying that a disturbingly high percentage of immigrants did not really come here to seek freedom, and that many of them come from countries that have no right to keep and bear arms, and that this is an alien concept to them, and that the government obviously did a lousy job teaching them about the Constitution during the naturalization classes. Most of these people NEVER should have been granted American citizenship.
Fortunately, the state government is going to have a more difficult time implementing the new gun control law in Nevada, because part of it relied on the FBI to do more background checks for gun sales, and the FBI said that they do not have the time or resources for this, and that they can’t be legally bound by a state ballot initiative. The anti-gun rights people vow to not give up in Nevada, so if they can’t get the FBI to do more background checks, they plan to come back with something else in Nevada.
Why would the government do this? Because there are people in government who want to destroy what is left of freedom in this country. If they can’t get enough popular support among the general American population to destroy the right to keep and bear arms, they will import a more compliant population and radically alter the demographics so they can get what they want.
I am really surprised, and disappointed, that there are so many self proclaimed libertarians out there who are too afraid to talk about demographics. There are entire fields of study dedicated to studying demographics and analyzing statistical trends. You’d best believe that Democrats and Republicans study these things. Maybe not their rank-and-file members or supporters, but the people who run their campaigns most definitely study these things, as do government officials (all of whom are Democrats and Republicans).
I consider the right to keep and bear arms to be in the top four issues (the others being taxation, currency (as in who controls the issuance of money), and fair jury trials (as in juries with randomly selected jurors who are fully informed of their right to nullify laws)). One could make a good argument that the right to keep and bear arms is the most important right, because if you lose that, then you’ve lost your ability to fight for any other rights.
Think about this. Right now, the only demographic that has a pro-gun rights majority is white Americans, but it is not that much of a majority. If you narrow it down to whites who live in rural areas, the level of support for gun rights goes higher, and then if you narrow it down to whites who’d be classified as being rednecks/hillbillies/cowboys, support for gun rights goes even higher.
The average strong gun rights supporter in this country is a 55 year old white male. What is going to happen as these 55 year old white male gun rights supporters start dying off?
What is going to happen when rural whites become more of a minority than they already are (whites who live in urban areas are less likely to be gun rights supporters)?
What is going to happen when all of these kids currently being raised by single moms (which means they are less likely to have anyone take them out shooting) become old enough to vote? Remember, these kids are being indoctrinated by leftist school teachers and college professors, and many of them are politically correct Social Justice Warriors? They have heard about how “bad” guns are in the media, and they’ve all hype about school shootings.
Now factor in MILLIONS of people from foreign countries immigrating to the USA, who have ZERO cultural background in the right to keep and bear arms, or in having a limited government. Also, consider that most of these immigrants settle in large urban areas, which means that they are more less likely to interact with Americans who are pro-gun rights (keep in mind that lots of immigrants cluster together with other immigrants from the same place where they are from, and they generally do not socialize much with people who are from outside of their immigrant group).
Now consider that the MILLIONS of immigrants are being “woo’d” by politicians who allow them to sign up for welfare, and who want their votes after they become citizens. Most of these politicians are anti-gun rights.
Now consider that these MILLIONS of immigrants have MILLIONS of kids.
DO YOU NOT SEE A MAJOR PROBLEM HERE?
The NRA will fall. It’s inevitable.
Just look at the demographics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/the-nra-will-fall-its-inevitable/
From the article: The recent deadly shooting at an Oregon community college, like so many before it, isn’t likely to lead to new federal laws designed to curb dangerous people’s access to guns. While this understandably frustrates supporters of gun safety legislation, there is reason for them to be hopeful. The National Rifle Association’s days of being a political powerhouse may be numbered.
Why? The answer is in the numbers.
Support for, and opposition to, gun control is closely associated with several demographic characteristics, including race, level of education and whether one lives in a city. Nearly all are trending forcefully against the NRA.
The core of the NRA’s support comes from white, rural and relatively less educated voters. This demographic is currently influential in politics but clearly on the wane. While the decline of white, rural, less educated Americans is generally well known, less often recognized is what this means for gun legislation.
Polls show that whites tend to favor gun rights over gun control by a significant margin (57 percent to 40 percent). Yet whites, who comprise 63 percent of the population today, won’t be in the majority for long. Racial minorities are soon to be a majority, and they are the nation’s strongest supporters of strict gun laws.
An overwhelming majority of African Americans say that gun control is more important than gun rights (72 percent to 24 percent). While the African American population shows signs of slow growth, other racial minority groups are growing more rapidly — and report even greater support for gun control.
The fastest-growing minority group in America is Latinos. Between 2000 and 2010, the nation’s Latino population grew by 43 percent. Hispanics, which make up 17 percent of the population today, are expected to grow to 30 percent of the population in the coming decades.
Gun control is extremely popular among Hispanics, with 75 percent favoring gun safety over gun rights.
Asian Americans also represent a growing anti-gun demographic. Although only about 5 percent of the population today, the Asian American population is predicted to triple over the next few decades. A recent poll of Asian American registered voters found that 80 percent supported stricter gun laws.
After the 2012 election, Republican officials said the party needed to do more to appeal to the growing population of racial minorities. Yet the party’s refusal to bend on gun legislation highlights the difficulty of such efforts. If the GOP compromises on guns to appeal to minorities, it might lose support among its core of white voters.
Rural Americans tend to oppose gun control, with 63 percent saying that gun rights are more important than gun control. The country, however, is becoming less rural and more urban. Recent years have witnessed a significant increase in the number of people living in cities, with big metropolitan areas experiencing double-digit growth.
This shift, like that on race, is a boon for gun control. Urban residents strongly prefer gun control to gun rights (60 percent to 38 percent), for reasons that aren’t hard to understand. When gun violence is on your television news every night and police are commonplace, people may come to view guns more as a threat than a savior.”
LibertyDave said: “First, immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in welfare benefits. ”
I have heard people throw this around before, and it is bullshit, because all forms of welfare were not included when this figure was compiled, PLUS THEY DID NOT INCLUDE THE OFFSPRING OF IMMIGRANTS, BECAUSE UNDER OUR CURRENT IDIOTIC LAW, THEY ARE COUNTED AS AMERICANS CITIZENS, SO ALL OF THE TAX MONEY THEY SUCK UP IS CONVENIENTLY LEFT OUT OF THIS EQUATION.
LibertyDave said: “If I own a farm that grows corn and I sell the corn to a town 40 miles away, then you buy all the land that surrounds my farm, then according to you I will need to ask your permission to cross your land to sell my corn to the town. This in essence makes me either your slave or a criminal because you then can make outrageous demands and I will have no other options but to comply or violate your property rights. When people can’t cross borders peacefully then they will do so violently.
I can’t believe that I have to explain this simple concept to such a well-known Libertarian activist.”
Yes, I am well aware of the concept of easements. Sure, you can have an easement to travel from point A to point B, but this has NOTHING to do with immigration, nor does it have anything to do with obtaining citizenship in another country and therefore impacting their political system, which is what we have to deal with under the current system under which we live.
“LibertyDave
February 9, 2017 at 14:12
Andy
Property rights DO NOT TRUMP the right to travel.”
This is a load of crap. So I’ve got a right to travel to your backyard and set up camp there?
You’re not following. You’re stating something that only rarely happens. The things I listed happen every day in Islamic countries.
William Saturn – “Yeah. That happens in every town in the US and Europe, right?”
Well, gee, I guess if they’re only burning mosques and shooting Muslims in *some* towns, that makes it just fine and dandy, doesn’t it?
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say the gummint agrees to allow 1000 people to immigrate from a certain country/region every day/week/month/whatever. And because of historical analysis, we know that 2% of those immigrants have a communicable fatal disease (STD/whatever) that cannot be diagnosed before symptoms are evident, which can take months to occur. What should the gummint (we?) do?
Since LD and dL don’t seem to like Andy’s anecdotes *or* statistics, I’ll just have to start posting links to articles to prove to readers here how full of s*** the two DLs are.
https://www.rt.com/news/376779-belgium-radical-islam-rising/
Yeah. That happens in every town in the US and Europe, right?
William Saturn – “Dangerous Christian fundamentalists who behead infidels, throw gays off roofs, force women to cover up . . . oh wait . . .”
Right, wait. All these people have been doing so far is burn and shoot up mosques.
Andy
Property rights DO NOT TRUMP the right to travel.
If I own a farm that grows corn and I sell the corn to a town 40 miles away, then you buy all the land that surrounds my farm, then according to you I will need to ask your permission to cross your land to sell my corn to the town. This in essence makes me either your slave or a criminal because you then can make outrageous demands and I will have no other options but to comply or violate your property rights. When people can’t cross borders peacefully then they will do so violently.
I can’t believe that I have to explain this simple concept to such a well-known Libertarian activist.
Saying that open borders will raise your taxes to expand welfare is like claiming going to the hospital will causes people to die. Neither of these statements is true.
First, immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in welfare benefits. There are about 61 million immigrants and about 11 million are undocumented immigrants in the US, and they all pay taxes. Most of the legal immigrants in the US are either students whose parents are rich enough to send their children here or are highly skilled workers here on work visas. These people don’t receive social welfare but they do pay taxes. This means that the percentage of the taxes you pay that goes to social welfare will remain about the same which is about 3% of total taxes paid. Immigrants create more wealth in the areas they settle in than they consume in resources. This is why immigration is a good thing. By the way most welfare goes to natural born citizens not immigrants.
Second, the freedom to travel where you want to go is a human right. If I have to ask permission to go somewhere then I am no longer a free man but a slave to the people that grant this permission. By giving the government the power to restrict movement across borders, you are giving the government the power to restrict all movement.
Hence, the invention of the aphorism, “don’t let the perfect be the highly armed, totalitarian enemy of the good.” And just to point out, your views cost me liberty and money. I view you as the welfare queen. The enemy.” You want the awesome power of the state in the business of detaining, imprisoning and deporting your enemies. Sooner or later, that net is going to be cast over you. The same security apparatus you want to be used against others will be used against you. Count on it…
Stupidity is the one condition that can be remotely diagnosed without need of an office visit.
Stupid and a liar. Snowflakes always gotta be making up shit. The again, what else do you got but “alternate facts.”? The last resort of relying on your mental faculties is typically prone to catastrophic failure.
LibertyDave said: ““And Just because I am in favor of open borders”
That’s great that you are in favor of open borders. You can open up the borders to YOUR PROPERTY that YOU PERSONALLY OWN. You have no right to impose your preference on everyone else, particularly when doing so impacts the rest of our taxes, crime rates, and election results.
If you don’t want the government to control immigration, the only way to make it work is to have an anarcho-capitalist society where property owners and groups of property owners working in voluntary associations control immigration/migration polices for their property.
Let me know when you get the anarcho-capitalist society going.
LibertyDave said: ““And Just because I am in favor of open borders doesn’t mean I am in favor of welfare expansion. These are two separate issues.”
These would only be separate issues if it were illegal for immigrants to receive government welfare benefits. Since it is not illegal, THEY ARE CONNECTED ISSUES.
“LibertyDave
February 9, 2017 at 00:13
William Saturn and Andy
You don’t need to be religious to be religious bigots, all you need to do is condemn an entire group of people based on their religion.”
A religion is a set of beliefs. Would you have supported bringing former Nazis to the USA after World War II, which happened under Operation Paperclip? These were hardworking German immigrants who came here to look for a better life. So what if they were Nazis, we aren’t supposed to discriminate because of beliefs, right?
” all you need to do is condemn an entire group of people based on their religion.”
Where was this done other than by yourself or your comrade dL?
“And Just because I am in favor of open borders doesn’t mean I am in favor of welfare expansion. These are two separate issues.”
No they aren’t. As long as there is a welfare state people will be drawn to immigrate to the nation to take advantage. When you increase immigration you increase the usage of welfare.
William Saturn and Andy
You don’t need to be religious to be religious bigots, all you need to do is condemn an entire group of people based on their religion.
And Just because I am in favor of open borders doesn’t mean I am in favor of welfare expansion. These are two separate issues.
” I was pointing out that anyone can find statistics on the internet to justify their prejudices.”
Which you did through fake unsourced statistics to justify anti-Christian bigotry in order to make moral equivalence with documented practices that take place in Muslim majority nations.
William Saturn
You stating: “Never said that be we’ve already established your problem with facts” is like the pot calling the kettle black.
On this thread I have consistently called on people to quit with the religious bigotry saying it is wrong to judge an entire group based on the action of a few, and then you said this about me.
“At least LD uses fake statistics to back up his religious bigotry.”
A) I have never stated what my religious belief is or that it is better than any other religious belief. I have only stated what is not my religious belief. I am not a Christian. I am not a Muslim. I am not an Atheist.
B) I have never said one religion is better than another, all I’ve said is religious bigots use contradictions in their religious texts to justify their prejudice.
C) I never claimed that the statistics I found were fake or true. I was pointing out that anyone can find statistics on the internet to justify their prejudices.
I don’t take part in religion either. The ad hominem attacks and anti-Christian bigotry in order to show moral equivalence is just a distraction from those who cannot defend their open borders welfare expansionism.
I do not take part in any religion. I already acknowledged that there are people who claim to be Christians who have done bad things. None of this changes anything that I said.
Maybe so. But while you diagnose fake conditions over the internet, hopefully you can get some help for your delusional paranoia against the people discussing issues here. Most of your comments are ad hominem attacks against people. So you’re not doing much to allow collegial discussion of issues.
Apparently, you have some type of learning disability aphasia in regards to understanding the content of your own written expression. A mental condition common among consumers of the right wing noise machine typified by the denial of the clear meaning of what one may write or say. In some cases, denying in a comment what one just clearly expressed in the same comment.
“In terms of bombs dropped, support of government overthrows, military occupations, refugee crises caused? Anything that I would view as superior in terms of culture is something the Christian fundies likely would oppose and want to abolish.”
Silly me. I thought we were discussing immigration to this country.
Yes. Dangerous Christian fundamentalists who behead infidels, throw gays off roofs, force women to cover up . . . oh wait . . .
“The one guilty of religious bigotry is you with all your claims about the inferiority of Islam compared to the supposed cosmopolitan tameness of Christianity.”
Never said that but we’ve already established your problem with facts.
In terms of bombs dropped, support of government overthrows, military occupations, refugee crises caused? Anything that I would view as superior in terms of culture is something the Christian fundies likely would oppose and want to abolish.
The one guilty of religious bigotry is you with all your claims about the inferiority of Islam compared to the supposed cosmopolitan tameness of Christianity. True, I despise religion, all of them, but I wouldn’t classify that view as being bigoted, sectarian, tribalist, or jingoist. Atheism is not religious bigotry. And If I lived in an islamic country, I would be directing most of my ire at Islam, unless, of course, I was being bombed by a Christian country.
Liberty is something that never has to be justified, particularly to authoritarians like yourself. However, I have written several comments in this thread knocking down all the garbage claims against liberty of movement using logic, reason and numbers. Not that any of that would ever matter to the authoritarian mindset.
DL says:
“But christians have a particularly propensity to project religious messianic purpose onto the State and to combine it with historical prejudices deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.”
Compare current Christian majority nations with current Islamic majority nations.
At least LD uses fake statistics to back up his religious bigotry. Is it too much to ask for open borders welfare expansionists to base their arguments on logic and reality? I guess so.
Don Wills
I have stated over and over that twisting statistics to support your prejudice is as wrong as you judging a large group of people based on the actions of a few.
Andy keeps doing this then you started so I wanted to show you how easy it is to do this with any religion. I don’t know if any of the statistics I found are correct or not except for the first one about bigots using the old testament justify their violence, just like the Muslim bigots are using the Quran to justify theirs.
All major religious text contain contradictions which their followers use to justify their violence. Just because I picked on your religion doesn’t mean I support theirs.
As far as my fear of Christians being greater than my fear of Muslims, I live in a majority Christian nation and I interact with a lot more Christians than I do Muslims. And I have seen with my own eyes the violence committed by Christians bigots in the name of their beliefs. If I lived in a majority Muslim nation it would undoubtedly be just the opposite.
So if you are a Christian, quit being a bigot and follow the commands of Christ.
Matthew 5:38-45 You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
True Christians are the bravest people I know because they overcome their fears instead of giving into them like the bigots that spew their fear and hatred with ever breath.
Actually, I never brought up the slave trade. You did. Since you brought it up, slavery has never been constrained to any one culture, religion, region. The Abrahamic religions certainly practiced it and fostered the trade in it. The enlightenment period brought a general end it to eventually by the end of 19th century . Christianity didn’t start the slave trade nor did it end it. As usual, you just make up our own “alternate facts” version of things.
Liberal civil liberties have nothing to do w/ Christianity. Nothing. Apart from that, it is an easy to check how many civilians/people the United States government has killed and invaded in wars vs something like Iran which hasn’t externally invaded anyone in centuries.
Actually, the American christian baal worshippers frown deeply at disrespect to Jesus-America. Just look at the reactions to those who refuse to salute the flag during the national anthem. Talk about vitriol. Indeed, if the god of Abraham was to exist, the american christians better hope it is Allah. The Islamic hell is not eternal, whereas the christian one is. Otherwise, the american christians social cons are on a one-way ticket to an eternal party w/ the dude Satan. Because they are idolaters.
“dL
February 8, 2017 at 15:43
‘I have put together some facts for you about the Christian religion’
Yep. Christians, not muslims, put the Jews in the ovens. ”
There are people of all kinds of proclaimed religious beliefs who have committed all kinds of crimes, including Christians, and also including Jews.
Even so, I think that you are being pretty damn disingenuous to act as though there is no difference between the level of civil liberties in predominantly Christian nations vs predominantly Muslim nations.
Also, if you want to talk about the slave trade, it was actually Christians that ENDED the slave trade, at least in predominantly Christian nations. Yes, there were some people who claimed to be Christians who participated in the slave trade, but Christians actually played a smaller role in it than did Muslims. There were also Jews who were involved in the slave trade.
I realize that there are wacky Christian fundamentalists out there, and I have debated many of them over the years on a variety of issues. All religions have their nutcases, but even so, it is not a regular accepted practice in the USA, to rape women, or to force women to cover themselves in public, or to beat up gay or murder gays, all of which are far more common practices in Muslim nations.
“LibertyDave
February 8, 2017 at 14:11
Andy
Accepting charity from whoever offers it, be it a private entity or the government, doesn’t mean that person is not being peaceful. ”
Government welfare programs are NOT charity. Taxation is theft, and government welfare programs are the distribution of stolen funds. Receiving stolen funds makes one an accessory to theft.
Also, under the US Constitution, government welfare programs are unconstitutional. A foreigner coming to this country and receiving government welfare programs means that they either oppose the US Constitution, or do not know what the US Constitution says, or care enough to find out.
The Naturalization oath to become an American citizens includes swearing an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution. How serious is a person who swears an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution who also gets on government welfare programs? Remember, falsely swearing an oath is perjury, which should actually invalidate the citizenship of those who swear in as American citizens who take part in government welfare programs, and/or who otherwise support violating the US Constitution.
I am surprised to see a self proclaimed libertarian equating government welfare programs as being “charity”.
Yep. Christians, not muslims, put the Jews in the ovens. People apparently need that reminder if we are going to properly discuss religious barbarism. True, it wasn’t done in the name in the Christianity. It was done in the name of the state. But christians have a particularly propensity to project religious messianic purpose onto the State and to combine it with historical prejudices deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.
They did it in Germany. They apparently want to repeat that experiment in the United States, replacing the jews w/ the muslims. All on the pretext of the illiberal heresy of Islam. Although, given their own preferences, the right-wing social cons would completely abolish every liberal sentiment they could get their dirty paws on, if they had the chance.
If I lived in Iran, i’m sure my biggest worry would be the mullahs. But I live in the United States. And my biggest enemy is the state (baal) worshipping Christian social cons.
LD – Sharia Law frowns upon non-believers far more than Christianity does. But you know that – your ridiculous arguments expose you as just another troll. May Sharia Law be kind to you on your journey to less fearful places.
Andy
Accepting charity from whoever offers it, be it a private entity or the government, doesn’t mean that person is not being peaceful. The reason you are paying higher taxes to support these people is because you are doing a piss poor job of convincing people that it is not the job of the government to provide charity. In all your rants you say stop Muslims because Muslims are bad because they accept charity from the government instead of saying that the government should stop providing charity because they do such a bad job of it.
As far as people voting to expand the welfare state and more gun control laws it isn’t the immigrants to blame for this but government controlled schools brainwashing our children for the past few generations.
The increase of rapes in Sweden has to do with them changing the definition of rape to include crimes that weren’t considered rape before and also reporting a crime as rape when someone is arrested and not removing it if it turns out to be some lesser crime or if the person was found innocent. Also Sweden doesn’t break down into group who they are accusing of committing these crime. They haven’t since 1997 so your claim that Muslims are to blame for the increase of rapes in Sweden is as much a lie as your claim “A year or two ago in Olso, Norway, 100% OF THE RAPES WERE COMMITTED BY MUSLIM MIGRANTS.” which has been debunked on several websites. I would provide links but you have shown you won’t read them.
You complain that people don’t follow your links that you claim are proof but you don’t bother with links that others provide that show different.
This make you a hypocrite as well as a bigot.
Don Wills
I have put together some facts for you about the Christian religion
1. 100% of churches in the US have texts on site rated as severely advocating violence. It called the old testament. Christian hypocrites have been using it to justify their violence since the dark ages.
2. 66% of American Christians support drone strikes that are killing innocent men, women, and children.
3. 27% of American Christians say that violence is justified against those who “offend Christianity”.
4. 57% of Republicans say dismantle constitution and make Christianity the National religion.
These were from quick google searches except for the first one which comes from actually reading the bible. And this is the reason as a non Christian or Muslim I am more afraid of Christians than I am of Muslims.
Shocking: Sweden is now the RAPE capital of the West. Here’s why…
http://www.allenbwest.com/ashleyedwardson/mainstream-media-wont-tell-you-why-sweden-is-now-rape-capital-of-the-west
From the article: “While the rest of Europe struggles to absorb the flood of young male immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, countries may be well advised to look at Sweden for a terrifying glimpse of the future.
‘Sweden began opening its doors to Muslim immigrants in the 1970s. Today it pays a high price for having done so. The group suffering the severest consequences of such an open door policy has been Swedish women,’ according to The Daily Caller.
‘As Muslim men immigrated to Sweden, they brought with them an Islamic culture sanctioning rape. It is a culture bad enough inherently in the treatment of its own women. Under sharia, Muslim women serve little more purpose beyond catering to their husbands’ sexual demands. A non-submissive wife runs the risk of being raped by her husband.’
‘But under sharia, this rape culture also impacts upon Swedish women as they are ‘infidels’ and, as such, are — according to Allah’s teachings — sanctioned targets for rape by Muslim men. Such an Islamic belief system has born witness to a drastic increase in rapes in Sweden — more than a thousand fold — since first opening its doors to Muslim immigration.'”
I just looked it up, and I found several sources that say that the rape increase percentage in Sweden post mass migration of Muslims is actually 1,472%.
I was referring specifically to Sweden with the 1,000% rape increase figure. Actually, I think that it is over 1,000% percent now.
Liberty Dave, have you looked at the welfare statistics for modern day mmigrants? A majority of them are on welfare. When it comes to Muslim migrants, 91.4% of them are on welfare. Yes, you read that right. Welfare use is the receiving of stolen goods. Why should Americans like myself be forced to pay higher taxes to support these people? Entering another country and getting on welfare is NOT the act if a peaceful person.
Have you examined the voting patterns of modern day immigrants who become “American citizens” (I use the term loosely)? A majority 9f them, actually, more like a super-majority of them, vote to expand the welfare state and for more gun control laws.
Then look at crime statistics. They commit more crimes on average than the native population, and the Muslim migrants are some of the worst in this regard, as there have been huge increases in the number of rapes committed in every country where they have migrated. A year or two ago in Olso, Norway, 100% OF THE RAPES WERE COMMITTED BY MUSLIM MIGRANTS. Rapes have increased over 1,000% thanks to Muslim migrants, and it is a similar story in Germany, France, and every other country that has allowed these people to enter, AND THE SAME THING IS STARTING TO HAPPEN HERE, we are just in the early stages of it. It would probably be worse here now if not for the fact that we still have some gun rights here in the USA. If the Europeans weren’t such a bunch of pansies, they’d allow the women there to start carrying handguns.
This is not a case of “a few bad apples,” this is an epidemic which is caused by a culture that does not respect individual rights, especially for women.
LibertyDave wrote about Andy’s substantial writings – “These post aren’t convincing anyone…”.
Actually, most Americans are partially or completely innumerate, so anecdotes are the only way to persuade others of your position. Andy’s writing is truthful, albeit anecdotal. And will convince some readers.
Islam is unique as it is a combination of church and state. No other significant religion embodies such a world-view today.
If you want statistics instead of anecdotes, try this page – http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/opinion-polls.aspx
Here are some facts from that page:
1. 51% of mosques in the US have texts on site rated as severely advocating violence.
2. 19% of American Muslims believe suicide bombings in defense of Islam are at least partially justified.
3. 24% of American Muslims say that violence is justified against those who “offend Islam”.
4. 33% of American Muslims say that Sharia should be supreme to the US Constitution.
5. 51% of American Muslims say that Muslims should have the choice of being judged by Sharia courts rather than US courts.
15 years ago I had a naive view of Islam, thinking it was just another silly religion not unlike Rastafarians or Scientologists. However, after much reading on the subject, I’ve changed my opinion. Christianity was tamed during the period of 1300 – 1800 with various changes ending with The Enlightenment. During those centuries, Christianity was essentially separated from the state and stopped some really nasty practices. Islam has yet to go through that process. It is nothing more than a mind-control cult that is led by crazy elders who believe that they are on a mission from god to convert the world to Islam. In the text and teachings of the elders, murder and mayhem are perfectly legitimate methods to reach their goal. The ends justify the means.
Islam is simply incompatible with the western liberal values embodied in various foundational documents and dogmas including the Magna Carta, John Locke’s writings, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If Islam has been tempered in a couple of centuries, maybe it will be compatible with our liberal values. Until that happens, Islam is simply too dangerous to allow it to get a foothold in our country.
History shows that civilizations fail for a variety of reasons. There is a very real danger that western civilization will eventually fall to the forces of evil led by the Salafists (i.e. The House of Saud, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc.) who are at the forefront of the war with the west. It won’t happen in my lifetime (I’m old), but Islam could win given our current political correctness and downright stupidity. In 200 years, historians (if they are even allowed to write) will likely note with particular curiosity this time in history as a turning point when liberal values (libertarianism) was at its peak. It is my conclusion that if Islam gets significant control of the governments of the western hemisphere, our descendants are fucked.
Andy
Can you please stop with these bigoted posts. Just because one Muslim is a rapist doesn’t mean that they all are. That would be like claiming that because a Christian was convicted of rape all Christians are rapists.
No one is claiming that all immigrants are peaceful. We are claiming that most immigrants are peaceful. They are more peaceful on average than the native population that you claim to be trying to protect. Also your immigration ban will only keep out the peaceful immigrants. The ones that aren’t peaceful will ignore the ban and come illegally and a wall won’t stop them.
These post aren’t convincing anyone of anything except that you are a bigot. No better than the trolls you keep complaining about.
“dL
February 6, 2017 at 19:55
‘Actually, I’m thinking about helping interested non-Californians get together to build a group called “See Ya” to push for California secession so it can become a Marxist paradise.’
Apple, Google, Silicon Valley vs. the Stalinist paradise of walls, border control, import taxes, and Strong Man of the Soviet Christian Federation of Trump.”
I would not be surprised if the politicians in California ended up driving those companies out of California with all of their taxes and regulations, just like they have already driven a lot of other businesses out of the state.
Here is another example of these so called “peaceful people” crossing borders.
MUSLIM MIGRANT ANALLY RAPES TEENAGER, GETS ONLY TWO MONTHS JAIL
http://www.infowars.com/muslim-migrant-anally-rapes-teenager-gets-only-two-months-jail/
From the article: “A Swedish court sentenced a Muslim migrant to only two months in jail after being convicted of anally raping a 13-year-old girl.
The court also ordered Mohammed to pay the equivalent of $2800 to the victim and also gave him probation, claiming his sentences for child rape and sexual exploitation should be lenient because the Syrian migrant claimed he was 17 when the rape occurred in Dec. 2016 at a school in Jämtland County, which is in the middle of Sweden,
‘The then-17-year-old man, who since turned 18, pulled a 13-year-old girl on one of the school’s toilets, locked the door and then raped her,’ reported the Swedish newspaper Expressen. ‘During the trial, the convicted rapist’s age has been a major issue.’
‘His personal shows that he was born in 1998, and was 18 years old when the crimes were committed, but by his own admission he was born in 1999.’
In other words, the Swedish court somehow accepted ‘Syrian papers’ Mohammed presented claiming he was 17, despite Swedish documents showing he was 18 when he entered the country.
The paper also explains that in Sweden, the sentence for a juvenile is typically 1/3 of an adult’s.
Mohammed was also charged with another rape of a 14-year-old under similar circumstances, but the District Court claimed it was child abuse, not rape, because of the “degree of reciprocity.”
Apple, Google, Silicon Valley vs. the Stalinist paradise of walls, border control, import taxes, and Strong Man of the Soviet Christian Federation of Trump.
Marx > Stalin
Actually, I’m thinking about helping interested non-Californians get together to build a group called “See Ya” to push for California secession so it can become a Marxist paradise. With their ability to vote on citizen-initiated propositions, it will likely become a big topic for the MSM in the next few months. What’s most interesting about secession arguments is that most everyone agrees that if an amendment to the Constitution is adopted to let California go, secession can happen without a civil war. My bet is you could get 40 state legislatures to vote in favor today.
No distinction in the libertarian case means no distinction in the abridgment of the right to travel freely. The liberty to go from A to B. This contrasts to your “no distinction” which falsely applied the special welfare subsidy for political refugees to immigrants to make a doomsday welfare state argument.
The proposition that immigration must be curtailed b/c increased population densities would lead to shortages in goods, services, housing is a proposition I have previously falsified. This claim essentially is equivalent to GDP per capita is inversely related to population density. Not only is GDP per capita not inversely related to population density, it is actually directly related to population density. The higher the GDP per capita, the higher the population density. Indeed, population density is one of the better predictors of wealth of a region. The higher the density, the higher the wealth. The lower the density, the lower the wealth. This observation is independent of culture, religion, etc.
Hence, this authority claim to manage population movement based on bogus economics is rejected. In particular, this commentator mocks pronouncements like
by arm chair central planners
if western values means right-wing christian social conservatism, hooded white robes, rush limbaugh, copsucking, soviet walls, etc…i would hope not
It would be a glorious day for liberty is the bible thumpers seceded. Please, don’t tease me like that…
Don, would you vote for Constitution Party candidates?
You said that elections are one way to gain power. I agree with this. Another way to gain power is through the use of violence, or the threat of violence, as in violent revolution, or the threat of violent revolution.
I see two other solutions:
1) A critical mass of people just refuse to obey any laws that violate individual rights. This means stop paying taxes, stop using government money (Federal Reserve Notes), stop obeying gun control laws, stop obeying regulations where nobody is harmed, burn your drivers license and take the liscense plates off of your vehicle, etc… This could be backed up by jury nullification. The government does not have the manpower or resources to go after everyone, so if enough people did it, they would not be able to stop it.
(The above would work best if a critical mass of people agreed with libertarian principles.)
2) Libertarian minded people break off from the rest of society and form private cities/zones, which would be based on libertarian principles and enforced via contract. Do a search for my concept called The Libertarian Zone, which is posted here at IPR.
“The libertarian position on open borders does not depend on any distinction between immigrants and political asylum. Your position–one that relies on a a claimed doomsday scenario–however falsely tries to equate the two…”
Huh? That seems to be self-contradictory. I wrote that there is no distinction, agreeing with the LP which makes no distinction. In very simple terms – this discussion is about human beings traveling from outside the current borders of the USA for the purpose of residing inside the current borders. The label applied to those humans is irrelevant.
The question is how many human beings would make that journey each year. I conclude that, given the pressures of poverty and hopelessness around the world and the relatively small cost of travel today, that the number would be many millions per year. The USA simply does not have the capacity to supply even sub-standard housing or unskilled jobs for these humans. It is Andy’s thesis that without a moral foundation that is compatible with western values, when these millions become voters, the USA ceases to exist. I agree with him, but I don’t think it will ever get that far – IMO, the USA will split apart before that ever happens. The onslaught of millions of non-English speaking uneducated humans that would come here for a better life when compared with the horrible conditions they live in now would cause the USA to fragment into several countries some of which are likely to be much less friendly to libertarians than what we have today.
Andy – nope, I will not support any LP candidate at any level because of the idiocy of the national party. I will instead support independents and Republicans who hold libertarian positions on many issues, but I will never support candidates who favor mostly open borders. IMO, the LP is simply too far gone to ever gain any political power by winning elections. Power is a dirty word in anarchist circles – I get that – but it is an essential aspect of human nature that it is only by wielding power that things will change (e.g. what the founding fathers did). And for those Libertarian dreamers who believe that political power can be gained without winning elections – dream on…
The libertarian position on open borders does not depend on any distinction between immigrants and political asylum. Your position–one that relies on a a claimed doomsday scenario–however falsely tries to equate the two and then commits a logical fallacy of bogus induction by extrapolating political asylum on a massive scale==immigration. I know conservatives are quite comfortable in dealing w/ “alternate facts” and made-up reality, but pointing out the logical fallacy==a refutation in most circles.
Again, to point out, the welfare state largely is enforcement of corporate protectionist monopolies, non-competitive rent extractions and middle-class subsidies. Rents flow to the top. Subsidies to the middle. Relatively little flows to those at the margins. People come here to get on “government welfare” is another one those alternate facts that conservatives like to traffic in. Indeed, for all the talk about preventing “government welfare,” the cons are are particularly eager to increase welfare extraction by the another federal thug bureaucracy…in this instance, border control. The agency, the unions, the federal government contracts, the walls, the taxes…Conservatives love the welfare state.
LibertyDave – I too detest linked videos. And no, I did not imply that no one helped immigrants – I was very specific in saying that government did not help immigrants in any meaningful way until after WW2. Andy is right about self-deportation being common before WW2.
With respect to the difference between literate, legal immigrants (note that a literacy test for immigrants was enacted 100 years ago) and refugees – the LP position of freedom of movement of humans does not include a literacy test. So those of you whose argument depends on the difference between today’s legal distinction between immigrants and political asylum seekers (refugees) are being disingenuous – the LP makes no such distinction.
I did not mean that there were no charities that helped immigrants in the past. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE in getting help from charities (or family and friends) and getting welfare from the government.
Don Wills
Thank you so much for not linking to videos. I can read in 10 to 15 minutes what it takes some talking head an hour to say.
Your links show that it is not immigration that is the problem but the government welfare state.
The history.com link shows that were the immigrants settled in the US are today the most wealthiest places in the US.
Your second link go into detail why government welfare is a bad thing but makes only one argument against immigration being bad by itself.
Before we talk about that one argument against lets talk about government welfare and immigration.
You implied and Andy outright states that before government welfare no one helped the immigrants. This is a false premise. There has always be help for the truly needy people. Before government welfare there were churches and other local organizations that helped the immigrants and other needy people. And they have always done a better job of it than the government. For example, if you have 100 dollars that you want to use to help the poor, do you give it to the local shelter and food bank or do you give it to the Department of human services.
As far as the one argument that immigration is bad in itself, that poor people are sicker that wealthy people and they bring there sickness with them when they immigrate. I have never claimed that immigration doesn’t have some problems. I claim that the benefits outweigh the negatives. The way to deal with the problem of sick people being sick is to help them find the medical help they need. There have always been free clinics that help the poor get the help they need. The answer is not to ban all immigrants because some of them might be sick. This isn’t fare to the immigrants that are healthy and it doesn’t keep the sick people out because when you stop legal immigration then you get illegal immigration and sick people coming in anyway so your immigration bans don’t address this problem anyway.
Instead of advocating not doing the good thing (immigration) because of the bad thing (government welfare) you should be advocating not doing the bad thing (government welfare) and doing the good thing (immigration)
Before there were government welfare programs, a good number of immigrants actually voluntarily self deported, that is that they thought life was too hard here so they left.
This gave the USA a more rugged population, which was a big factor in the country becoming successful.
Don, not all Libertarians push for “open borders” without regard to market conditions and other policies in place. I know that lots of Libertarians favor a more incrementalist approach to this issue, which is what I have suggested (the ultimate transition would be to a private property society). I think that the people who push for “open borders” right now regardless of what other policies and conditions are in place are either, a) people who have not thought the issue through, b) they are idealist philosophers who have no realistic plan to implement their ideas, and who think it sounds mean to exclude anyone, c) they are not really libertarians (there is what I call a fake “libertarian” movement that pushes for things like the Fair Tax and government managed trade agreements like the TPP, and they dress these things up in libertarian rhetoric even though they are not really libertarian proposals). I think that most of these people fall into groups a and b.
I already pointed this out, but I will say it again, and that is that the Libertarian Party’s platform does not actually call for open borders. It mentions the benefits of the free flow of labor, but then it says that it is OK to exclude people from entry who are a threat to security, health, or property. If there are situations where it is acceptable to bar people from entering the country, THAT IS NOT AN OPEN BORDER.
The old question on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz about immigration was about whether or not PEACEFUL people should cross borders freely. What about non-peaceful people? How do you define a peaceful person? I do not consider people who sign up for welfare (particularly if they just arrived in the country and never even paid taxes here) to be peaceful people. I do not consider people with political ideologies that are not libertarian to be peaceful people.
The true libertarian position on this issue is to transition to an anarcho-capitalist society where all land would be privately owned, and where land owners, or groups of land owners working in voluntary association, would set migration/immigration policies, some of which may be very lax, and others would be very restrictive.
We do not live in an anarcho-capitalist society, and we are unlikely to achieve one in the foreseeable future, so how do we best handle the situation now?
I have posted some reform proposals here that would still allow for immigration, but would weed out socialists, communists, and theocrats, and would bar immigrants from receiving welfare from the government. I think that this is the best we can do for now.
You said that you won’t vote for any Libertarian Party candidates because of the “open borders” position (which is not what the party’s platform actually says). Considering that this is more of a federal issue, would you still vote for Libertarian Party candidates running for local or state offices which have little or nothing to do with this issue? How about Libertarian Party members who have a more incrementalist, realistic approach to this issue, like what I have suggested? Would you vote for them?
Another thing to consider is that no Libertarian Party candidate is likely to get elected to any federal office anyway, so a vote for a Libertarian Party candidate for these offices is more of a protest vote than anything else. I am sure that you have plenty of disagreements with the typical Democrat and Republican candidates, so if you disagree with a Libertarian Party candidate on one issue, could you vote for them anyway, knowing that it is a protest vote so they will not win.
The real purest libertarian position with borders and immigration is to transition from the government controlling these things to private property owners controlling these things. This system could work IF the entire hardcore libertarian philosophy were implemented, but we are so far off from living in a world like that right now that it is not something that will happen without major changes taking place, and this is not going to happen anytime soon.
Refugee resettlement/political asylum is not immigration. You are using policies that are a consequence of disaster(usually war, typically w/ the United States being at the root of it), policies that apply to a limited number of people, and extrapolating the figures to some ridiculous hypothetical to the entire global population that has nothing to w/ refugee settlement/political asylum. This is an obvious inductive fallacy.
Of course, i imagine intelligent readers likely will know that logical argument does not require participants to accept one another’s premises. As I answered in a previous post, I rejected your premise b/c it is Malthusian, begging the question nonsense. On top of that, I even demonstrated by inference that your argument from such a premise is dead wrong.
Here is an example of what a nonsense begging the question argument looks like:
Intelligent person response: I reject that premise as nonsense.
Right-wing snowflake response: You refuse to answer my premise. **whine, whine** you setup a straw man and then called me stupid. You would be laughed off the stage at high school debate. You obviously went to school where they didn’t teach what the bible says about locusts and homosexuality. You dickwad. I’m going to call in to Rush Limbaugh and complain some more about leftist PC refusal to debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Rush will say, “See, Don, this type of leftist PC stupidity is what happens when we remove God from public education**whine,whine***
LibertyDave –
Now there’s a reasonable argument with which I respectfully disagree. Specifically, I stand by my conclusion (not assumption) that the increase would be a bad thing for the liberty and wealth of today’s US citizens. Times are different now than in the late 19th century when a wave of immigrants came from Europe. Here’s an excellent resource for the history of immigration into our country –
http://www.history.com/topics/u-s-immigration-before-1965
Key points: The highest year of immigration was 1907 with 1.3 million entering. From 1892 to 1954 there were 12 million immigrants who entered through Ellis Island. These numbers would be dwarfed by the numbers entering the USA in the next few decades if we went back to the 1880 when there was no legal barrier to entry – dwarfed in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of population.
More importantly, the government provided ZERO support to immigrants to the USA until the middle 20th century. Today each immigrant costs US taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per year because of our social welfare systems, both for the first year and for the life of each immigrant/refugee.
“Welfare use is staggering among refugees.” – a quote from the following comprehensive review of immigration –
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/refugee-resettlement-fact-sheets/
The belief that a policy of open borders would work out like it did previously is truly dangerous. In simple terms, it is betting the ranch (ie. my family’s liberty and wealth). I hope we never “bet the ranch” on open borders, and that’s why I won’t ever support the LP. No matter how much I agree with many libertarian ideas, this issue is a litmus test for me. To put it bluntly, like Humpty Dumpty, once the USA breaks, it won’t ever recover.
Don Wills
It is not your premise that immigration will increase with open borders that we reject, it is your premise that the increase would be a bad thing. As it has been show earlier in this thread that history has shown that immigration has always benefited the United States a whole lot more than any problems it may have caused.
The arguments you use to try and show its a bad thing are the same old tired arguments used by bigots over a hundred years ago and they are as wrong now as they where then.
dL – Fuck you dickwad. (See I can use your style of “discussion” too).
A. I don’t want to build a wall. I want the current system of limitation of immigrants via visa and green card limitations to continue with minor changes, but with better enforcement of existing law.
B. It is the LP THAT WANTS TO RADICALLY CHANGE POLICY TO ALLOW OPEN BORDERS. It is perfectly legitimate presumption to assume that patterns of movement of humans WOULD CHANGE DRAMATICALLY if the LP got its wish. Intelligent readers here will recognize that your dismissal of my arguments is bogus – you trot out a strawman that doesn’t represent my premise and then call it stupid and then pronounce that you answered my question when you didn’t even address my premise that many millions would come flooding into the USA each year.
You would be laughed off the stage at a high school debate with your arguments.
No, it’s a real group and not secret, but there are a lot of conspiracy theories about the CFR.
The Council of Foreign Relations is a “conspiracy theory”?
Oh, jeez. Now I’ve heard everything.
Andy
Your video link “The Rape of Sweden” is another example of bigots twisting statistics to support their prejudice.
There are several reasons the number of rapes in Sweden went up and immigration isn’t one of them.
To find out the truth about “The Rape of Sweden” here is a link that explains it thoroughly with footnotes and references.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden
Your contention that because some Muslim immigrants are rapists means that all Muslim immigrants are rapists is like saying that because some Catholic priests are pedophiles that all Christians are pedophiles.
The way to deal with immigrants that commit crimes is to catch them after they commit the crime, then have them serve their sentence in prison, and then deport them.
It is wrong to punish someone for a crime you THINK they might commit. And that is what your ban on immigration does.
Andy “Here’s what “Mr. Libertarian” Murray N. Rothbard had to say on this subject: This is from Murray Rothbard’s Nations by Consent:…”
Rothbard only advocated citizenship restrictions, not immigration restrictions. Citizenship restrictions are consistent with libertarianism, as citizenship is basically an invitation to a private club. But the practical enforcement of immigration restrictions violates libertarianism on multiple levels and, unlike Rockwell and his crowd, Rothbard acknowledged that by not crossing the line into advocating immigration restrictions.
The Rape Of Sweden | Ingrid Carlqvist and Stefan Molyneux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FluvpeD6lhQ
Let’s say Donald Trump and Congress decided to completely open the borders right now, and they did nothing to address the welfare state, or any other problems I brought up.
China and India each have over 1.3 billion people. Indonesia has over 260 million people. Pakistan has over 196 million. Nigeria has over 186 million people. Bangladesh has over 161 million people.
South of the USA border is Mexico with over 122 million people.
These are just a few countries with lots of people that would want to come here, especially if they were enticed by government welfare.
The USA has 324 million and something people.
How many people would come here over the next year if the governmented declared completely open borders, and if the welfare state continued? The USA currently takes in 1 million legal immigrants per year. Under this scenario, I could see that number shooting up to 5 million or more per year, maybe 10 million.
Like Don suggested above, I would not be surprised if the leaders of highly populated poor countries started up programs to ship some of their populations here. Women would flood in to have babies because of birthright citizenship and welfare.
How do you think that the majority of these people will vote once they are legally able to do so? Do you think many of them will vote for smaller government and in favor of gun rights, or will most of them vote for bigger government and gun control?
Would this mass influx of people cause the welfare rolls to increase or decrease?
If these new arrivals congregate mostly in major cities, what kind of toll would it take on infrastructure like roads, etc…? Sure, roads can be widened to accommodate more people, but this costs a lot of money.
Who is going to make sure these new arrivals understand the US Constitution, free market economics, and the right to keep and bear arms? The government? The Libertarian Party? Do you really believe that the Libertarian Party is going to reach all of those people? How about the NRA, or Gun Owners of America?
The most likely scenario based on all available data is that a super-majority of these people will vote to expand the state.
Some people are too blind to recognize an invasion when it is happening right in front of their eyes.
Well, everyone would have a problem w/ organized, non-peaceful invasion. Of course, the organization of non-peaceful invasion is almost always a state orchestration. War. The United States has organized a decades long, non-peaceful, violent invasion of the middle east & northern africa, precipitating a refugee crisis from that region. And your position is that “we” need to increase the power of the invader over our own lives to protect “us” from the invaded. The most nonsensical, ludicrous proposition I can imagine. Absurd.
I have no problem with PEACEFUL people immigrating. My problem is with NON-PEACEFUL people invading (“immigrating”).
I can read and analyze things like welfare statistics, crime rates, and voting patterns.
Opening the floodgates without taking these thing into consideration, and without enacting any policy changes with the welfare state, property rights, freedom of association, foreign policy, and the naturalization process, and do not be surprised if the results are disastrous.
The only experiment in welfare statism demonstrated by the current refugee flows is that of the United States not bearing the consequences of its war criminal actions. War refugee flows are not immigration flows. Who are the barbarians and the murders? The ones bombing or the ones being bombed. If you say the latter, you have more or less adopted the ideology of the Nazis. Might makes right.
So Andy, which immigrant pissed in your cereal? Which one was it that made you so angry that you abandon your belief in liberty to advocate for big government?
You do realize that if you give the government the power to kick out the people you don’t like and let the people you do like come in, then the government will also have the power to kick out the people you like and let the people you don’t like in.
Instead of trying to control where other people live and work how about we instead try to show people around us how liberty can make our lives better, and how big government only makes most peoples lives worse.
How has mass immigration welfare statism been working out in Sweden and other European nations that are trying this experiment? Not too good.
One, it is stupid malthusian proposition. We must build a wall or the global population will converge at the United States to consume all available resources. Typical drivel associated w/ minds brain damaged by over consumption of the right wing noise machine.
Two, the population density of the United States ranks 176th in the world at 32 people/sq kilometer. The world’s most densely populated country, Macau, comes in at 21,000 people/sq km. It is also the richest GDP per capita region in the world. Indeed, the highest population densities regions in the world are associated with the highest GDP per capita. Macau, Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore,Bahrain, Bermuda, etc. The one outlier is Gaza. But Gaze is prison enforced by a criminal apartheid state.
Of course, the United States, though having an overall very low average population density, nonetheless has wide statistical variances in population densities. The higher population densities in the US are associated with areas of great wealth. The lower ones are associated with areas of great poverty.
Consider you question answered. Your premise is nonsense. The conclusion from your nonsensical premise is not even correct. Or put differently, not everyone in the US shares the glorious vision of the right-wing christian taliban that seeks to “sovietize” every place in the US into bumfuck west virginia.
Its not surprising that none of the folks in favor of open borders even tried to answer my question –
“Do you really believe that the country has the ability to build the housing and infrastructure for ONE NEW New York metropolitan area *every year* for the foreseeable future (never mind the cost)?”
Andy, it’s so sad that you are letting you hatred and bigotry cloud you mind.
Your claim that peaceful immigration is an invasion that need to be repelled shows how your bigotry has driven you to become the authoritarian you claim to be fighting against.
Your use of welfare and voting pattern statistics to justify your beliefs reminds me of the following way that people use statistics to back false statements.
“Hospitals are dangerous and need to be shut down because statistics show that more people die who go to hospitals than anywhere else people go.”
Banning peaceful immigration is just like banning drug use, both are victimless crimes.
Also claiming that we should make naturalization more difficult reminds me of the communist purge during the 1950’s.
You can’t stop ideas using force.
It didn’t work in the 50’s and it won’t work now. And you claiming we need to enforce thought crimes is moving as far away from libertarianism as it is possible to get.
short, fat and stupid is no way to go through life, son….
Actually, I managed to get my hands on some really good economic theory. And troll > ignorant white trash.
Don, I bet that if there were no policy changes (as in the welfare state remained as is, etc…). and the borders were completely opened up, that the flood of people into this country would accelerate the process of this country turning into a giant crap hole. Maybe after the country is trashed immigration will start to slow down as not as many people will want to come here anymore because the once great US of A will resemble a 3rd world police state.
Liberty Dave, there IS a constitutional power to REPEL INVASIONS, and this is exactly what is going on when hordes of people with socialist, communist, and theocratic ideologies come over here. This should be clearly apparent when you examine their welfare usage and voting pattern statistics.
There is also constitutional power to set the terms for the naturalization of foreigners, and there is nothing that says that this process can’t be made more difficult. I would like to see this process overhauled to weed out all of the socialists, commies, and theocratic nutjobs.
dL – you must be a troll. The only other alternative that I can think of is that you’ve got your hands on some really good drugs, or you’re missing some key synapses in your thinking cap.
Do you really believe that the country has the ability to build the housing and infrastructure for ONE NEW New York metropolitan area *every year* for the foreseeable future (never mind the cost)?
Increasing civilization and prosperity results in increasing populations. Tyranny, stagflation, depression, dystopia leads to stagnant or decreasing populations. The population growth rate of the Soviet Union at the time of it’s break -up was 0.7%. It’s immigration rate 0%. Yeah, buddy.
Indeed a population increase of 50% over a decade would mean an incredible prosperity boom. I certainly would prefer that to the right-wing christian version of North Korea.
Downsize DC’s latest message to congress is about the travel ban so I thought I’d share a part of their reasoning.
The Constitution limits federal government powers to just those specifically listed (doctrine of enumerated powers). There’s no specific constitutional power to control or limit immigration. The listed power is naturalization (who becomes a citizen). Thus, the Trump travel ban and the legislation that authorized it are both illegal under the Constitution.
These actions are also immoral. Human rights are…
— Pre-constitutional: They belong to all persons, not just to citizens of the United States.
— Inalienable: They cannot be taken away by legislative action — Congress shall make no law…
And one such right is the freedom to move through public spaces, unmolested by state aggression.
Fears about terrorism cannot “trump” this right. Any large group of people will have sociopaths in it. We don’t deal with the vastly larger problem of American criminals by deporting innocent Americans with matching demographic characteristics. Neither should we deal with the problem of immigrant criminals by banning the innocent refugees our politicians have created through their interventionist foreign policy. It’s wrong to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
To read the who thing here is the link: https://downsizedc.org/blog/gut-trumps-travel-ban
Remember political power is dangerous. If you give the government the power to expel people who don’t agree with your ideas then they will have the power to expel people who share your ideas.
Andy is generally right with respect to the immigration.
That said, all this legal bantering about what the Constitution says or allows or doesn’t allow or positive rights blah blah blah is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Everyone here knows that the federal government is no longer constrained by a goddamn piece of paper (to quote a former president) – the folks in DC will do whatever they can get away with.
The moral and altruistic argument for unfettered immigration is far removed from reality, even farther removed from reality than almost all other LP positions (e.g. legalizing all drugs). Such thinking is absolute fantasy – so much so that I question the sanity of those who actually believe it would be a good idea.
The reality is that the concept of the USA – the experiment that man is capable of self-government – would never survive an onslaught of millions of immigrants per month. Remember that democracy is just mob rule with a shiny veneer.
In a few decades, a billion or more humans would immigrate to the USA if they could. For 150,000,000 Mexican and central Americans, that immigration would be very doable – just hop on a bus *or walk*. In addition to airplanes, I suspect the governments of India and China would employ cargo ships to offload their excess humans, transporting them on ships for free and by airplane with subsidies. The only limitation would be how many ships and airplanes could be employed. My wild guess is that a few million could arrive each year by boat and airplane, in addition to ten million or more from the Americas. The bottom line is that the population of the USA would increase from 325,000,000 to 500,000,000 in a decade or so. Does anyone here actually think our way of life, let alone the federal government, could survive such an onslaught?
langa, there is a right to prevent immigration on to property that is already occupied by other people. I have no right yo immigrate to your backyard unless I have your consent.
Also, under our current paradigm under the US Constitution, the government is tasked with the duty of repelling invasions, which could be in the form of a traditional military invasion, or it could be in the form of roving bands of common criminals, or it could be in the form of people with destructive political ideologies (socialists, communists, theocrats, etc…), who are coming here to get on welfare (which means they want to receive stolen property), and/or work to change the political landscape of the country into whatever their destructive political ideology is (socialist, communist, theocrats, etc…).
There are BIG DIFFERENCES between peaceful people crossing borders, and non-peaceful people crossing borders.
Also, under the US Constitution, the federal government can set the terms for Naturalization, and they could make those terms more difficult in order to weed out socialists, communists, theocrats, and other destructive people (or at least weed out as many of them as possible).
Even if libertarians were able to successfully eliminate the state and transfer into an anarcho-capitalist society, there would still be immigration restrictions set by land owners, some of which would be more restrictive than others.
The welfare state: rents flow to the top, subsidies to the middle, consequences to the poor.
Most of the direct, mandatory entitlement transfers are flowing to seniors in the form of social security and medicare. The other, medicaid, flows to both the very low-income and the disabled and old. Social security and Medicaid are notorious for their massive unfunded liabilities. The old and disabled by far consume most of medicaid’s resources(2/3rds of that spending). Discretionary “welfare transfers” account for less than 5% of the federal budget, usually carry some type of work requirement and are not available to immigrants. Indeed, the only program that immigrants are eligible for is medicaid. And I’m guessing they are not part of the old nor the disabled that serve as the primary long-term solvency issue for that program.
So, cons want to build soviet era walls b/c of immigrant consumption of medicaid? It’s obvious to anyone with an effective IQ above 80 that the long-term solvency issue of entitlement spending is old people. The natives. Indeed, most of Trump’s supporters are sitting around collecting entitlement spending while they they watch fox news. They have nothing better to do w/ their pathetic lives than rant against “illegals” while they collect their welfare checks. They’ll be dead within 10 or 15 years, they are not going to have to live w/ the consequences of this abject stupidity.
The younger elements of the Trumpist contingent are either rabid religious fundamentalists who scream “sharia law,” all the while supporting the imposition of something that would be just as bad, or are unfuckable creepy dudes(the alt-right) who project their failures w women onto some external force aligned against white people.
Keep in mind that that gumball video is from several years ago. That particular video in the link was posted online in 2010, but this speech may have been before this. The number of people in poverty in the world has increased since then.
This is a better version of the video I posted above. This one runs a little over 6 minutes, and the one I posted above runs around 3 minutes. Watch this one if you have not seen it.
Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs – NumbersUSA.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
“langa
February 1, 2017 at 03:12
Andy, I never said anything about ‘phasing out’ government. I’m the “button pushing” kind of anarchist (as Rothbard famously put it).”
OK, then why not “phase into” what immigration would look like in an actual anarcho-capitalist society, which means figuring out how to privatize all land and all of the assets currently being held by the government in as fair a manner as possible (which is a lot more complicated than a lot of people realize), repeal the welfare state, and repeal forced association laws?
Keep me updated on how this is working out for you.
QUESTION: Since it is OK for people from around the world to come to the USA and sign up for welfare, which countries can we do this in?
There have been wars throughout history that did not lead to mass migrations and people running into some other country and signing up for welfare.
Right here in the USA, there was the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.
How did people survive back then? Did they run off to some place far away like Syria or Somali and ask to be taken care of, and made citizens of those countries?
There were some Loyalists to the British Monarchy who went to Canada or to England after the American Revolution (too bad that all of the Loyalists/Tories did not leave), but there was no mass exodus, and there were no welfare programs back then.
The Civil War was the most destructive war in American history, in terms of number of deaths, number of wounded, and the amount of property that was damaged or destroyed. There was a small number of Confederates who fled to South America after the war, because they did not want to live under the Union, but there was no mass exodus, and there were no welfare programs back then.
How is it that people were able to pick up the pieces, rebuild, and survive back then, in an era of no government welfare programs?
Yeah, there was immigration back then, but keep in mind that there were also a lot less people back then. Most of the present day USA was unsettled. Yes, there were American Indians (aka-Native Americans), and yes, some of their land did get stolen (and if the American Indians had had greater numbers, and better technology, I bet that they would have stopped a lot of the migration that came in from Europe), but even with the American Indians, the population was still pretty sparse back then.
Another big difference between today and back then IS THAT THERE WAS NO WELFARE STATE. People had to either make it on their own, or rely on family and friends or private charities.
There were people who came to America back in those days who found life to be too difficult, so they actually self deported, as in they went back to Europe. This created a more rugged population, which is one of the reasons why this country became so successful.
The current population of the USA (not including illegal immigrants, homeless people, people living “off the grid”, and tourists or temporary workers) is around 324 million and something.
We have a big welfare state, and we have a government which ignores large sections of its own Constitution, and has transformed from a constitutional republic which uses some democratic procedures, to more of a democratic socialist state, where people can vote themselves “benefits” out of the public treasury.
This is no longer a country with a sparse population, where people had to come here and make it on their own. Those days are over.
There is no “right” to prevent immigration. And no, I don’t care if it’s in the Constitution. The “right” to slavery was once recognized by the Constitution, too.
Andy, I never said anything about “phasing out” government. I’m the “button pushing” kind of anarchist (as Rothbard famously put it).
Sure, completely abolishing the state immediately would probably cause some temporary problems, but the longer you wait, the worse it will get. It’s like living with a life-threatening tumor, because you think the surgery will be unpleasant. So what?
“langa
February 1, 2017 at 01:47
‘Once the welfare state is eliminated you can then open migration.’
This is like saying that as long as the government is paying for people’s health care, they have the right to ban tobacco, alcohol, “unhealthy” foods, etc. There’s nothing libertarian about holding one right hostage to another one.”
Hey, I don’t like government, and taxation is theft, so we should immediately cut off all funding from prisons and release everyone from prison. Lots of people are in prison for victimless crimes, so this will be a good thing.
There are also lots of people in prison for legitimate crimes, like murder, rape, child molesting, armed robbery, arson, extortion, assault and battery, etc… Do you really want to release all of these people?
Well no, but I want to release all of the people who are in for victimless crimes.
Yeah, but you said that taxation is theft, and the taxpayers are paying to lock up the really bad criminals as well.
Well I don’t want to release them.
What’s the matter? I thought that you said that you don’t tie one freedom to another freedom. So you are saying that it is OK to pay taxes as long as the money is used to lock up bad people?
Well, this is not my ideal. I would prefer private prison that operate on voluntary contributions, or where the prisoners.
Do you have such a prison built, and do you have voluntary contributions set up to fund such a prison at this time?
Well no, but maybe we can get to work on building one.
Well that’s great, but what do we do in the meantime?
I guess we will just have to keep them locked up in the government prisons.
Yeah, but until you are able to put together a plan to fund a private prison through voluntary contributions, we are going to have to keep the violent criminals in tax payer funded prisons, and you said that taxation is theft, and that you should not tie one freedom to another, and I want to stop having to fund the government prisons with my tax dollars, so I guess I’m going to have to hit the release button, and let everyone out, and tell all of the guards to go home because they’ve been laid off, because I don’t want to wait around for you to come up with your privately funded prison plan.
Stop! You are making me think too hard.
What about the stockpile of weapons of mass destruction that the government is holding? They are being guarded at military bases which are paid for through taxes. What do we do with them? Can I take a nuke home with me? How about some anthrax?
I don’t know what to do. I haven’t come up with a libertarian solution to that yet. Maybe we can discuss it at our next monthly supper club.
Hey, and how about those military bases in other countries? You said that taxation is theft, and that the military is a gang of thugs, and that those bases in other countries should be shut down and all of the troops should be brought home. It is going to awfully costly to shut those bases down and ship all of those troops and their equipment home. Sure, it would be cheaper in the long run than keeping them over there, but there would still be a great cost involved in bringing all of those troops and the equipment they use home. How do you propose to pay for this, being that you said that taxation is theft, and that I want to cut off that tax payer funding right now.
Well, um, gee, we might have to keep those taxes going for a little while so we can pay the costs that it would take to bring the troops home.
I thought that you said that you don’t want to tie one freedom to another.
Well, I know. Hey, maybe we can get enough voluntary donations to cover the costs of bringing home the troops. Lots of people will donate to veteran causes.
OK, but what do we do in the meantime? It could take you a long time to raise the amount of money that would be needed, to bring the troops home, and these troops are expecting a weekly pay check. A lot of them have families they are supporting. What are you going to do, tell them, “Sorry guys, no more paychecks, and you can just sit there waiting for us to raise enough money through voluntary charitable contributions to bring them home. Maybe you all can go out and get jobs in the private sector in whatever country it is where you are stationed.”
Do you really expect this to work?
Well, um, maybe not. But you know what, I’m an anarchist, so fuck the troops! They are thugs for the state, so cut off their funding and just leave them over there. They can come home on their own dime.
What about all of the equipment they use? You know, the weapons, the vehicles, the computers, the ammunition, etc… That stuff has to come back as well, or do you propose that we just abandon it and leave it in these countries where the bases are located.
I’m an anarchist, so fuck the military! Just leave all of their equipment there, and the troops can swim back home for all I care.
OK, but you do realize that if they leave all of those weapons laying around at an abandoned military base, they could fall into the wrong hands? You know, one of those ISIS guys could just waltz in and walk out with a nuclear bomb. Do you really think that it is a good idea to leave all of that military equipment just laying around at an abandoned military base?
Well, now that you put it that way, I suppose not.
OK, so it is going to cost a lot of money to bring all of that military equipment back home. So how are you going to cover this cost without using tax payer resources?
Hey, I know, in addition to asking people to donate for the troops, maybe we could have a bake sale! Lots of people like bake sales. Maybe we can sell cookies like the Girl Scouts do.
OK, but keep in mind that there are a lot of US military bases in other countries, and they have a lot of troops, and that this is a very large operation that you are proposing, which could take several months, maybe even a year or more. All of those military people need to get paychecks, plus they have been promised healthcare costs, not to mention the pensions they’ve been promised. How are you going to pay for all of this, and how are you going to pay for it quickly enough to not cause major problems? Remember, you said that taxation is theft, and that you can’t tie any issues together, so saying, “We will repeal those taxes that are funding the military just as soon as we bring all of the troops and their equipment home from other countries.” does not fly, because I want you to cut off that tax payer funding right now.
Well, I can’t do it right now.
So, you are advocating taxation?
Well, um, err, I just want to get us out of the mess we are in, and it is not realistic for me to cut off all funding to the military cold turkey without causing major problems, but don’t worry, I’m working on phasing it out.
Oh, so you think it is OK to steal my money right now to fund your military programs. STATIST!
Why all the austistic screeching from the PC liberals and social justice warriors? President Trump is great. The wall is great. Getting rid of terrorists and sending them back is great. I hope he doesn’t just stop at keeping more of them from coming over but actually sends them all back. And why not just ban Islam, burqas and mosques? We would have way less problems if that happened. We need E-Verify and strict enforcement against anyone that hires illegals. Protect American jobs. 35% tariff, across the board. Get rid of all the other taxes, tariffs is all we need for revenue. No more social programs, build a military that is bigger and better than ever and put it at the borders. Develop American energy with fracking, nuclear, and more oil and gas drilling. Coal too. Fix the roads and bridges, put people to work with infrastructure projects all over the country. Get all the illegals outta here, and their anchor babies too.
Support the police and get tough with the criminals, put them in tent city jails all over the country like Sheriff Joe did in Arizona, and crack down on drugs like President Duterte is doing in the Philippines. No more of this black lives matter crap. Start really enforcing the laws. Then make the inmates wear pink underwear, break rocks, eat green baloney and listen to Newt Gingrich lectures. Make them all line up and pledge allegiance to President Trump every morning, noon and night. And stop hating on President Putin. We need to do what he did in Russia in putting a stop to the gay parades and getting prayer back in the public schools. He is a good man and a good leader and I am glad President Trump is going to be friends with him. We need a revival of patriotism, lots of flag waving and military parades and reversing the diversity. The whole feminism thing should go the way of the dodo bird.
We won’t need welfare anymore, America will be getting to work. No more criminals and loitering in the streets, they will be in work camps and the streets will be safe. And let’s get moving on that special prosecutor for Hillary Clinton. She can be in a jail work camp sewing uniforms for police officers like the trashy tramps from Pussy Riot when they got locked up. Pretty soon it’s going to be like the 1950s in this country, and that’s a good thing.
No. I don’t value the potential rights of 7 billion to come to America over the existing rights of current Americans under the Constitution.
This is like saying that as long as the government is paying for people’s health care, they have the right to ban tobacco, alcohol, “unhealthy” foods, etc. There’s nothing libertarian about holding one right hostage to another one.
The situation for world poverty is actually worse than I reported above. 3 billion are in desperate poverty (defined by the World Bank as making less than $2 per day), but if you widen the net a little bit to include all of those who live in countries where the average income is below that of Mexico, you can add in another 2.6 billion people, so this brings the number to 5.6 billion impoverished people.
How many of these 5.6 billion people have the “right” to come over here? How many of them can come here and sign up for welfare?
“You may find it comforting to simply shrug your shoulders and accept tyranny.”
I don’t just accept it, I live it. I would love to live in a libertarian society but I currently do not because that is the reality I live in. Promoting open borders and expanding the welfare state does not get us any closer to a libertarian society. In order to eventually eliminate the welfare state you have to turn off the stream of dependants. Once the welfare state is eliminated you can then open migration.
Good presentation which illustrates the number of impoverished people in this world, and the absurdity of the position that a big dent in world poverty is being made by bringing lots of these people over here, which is even more absurd when you factor in the high welfare consumption from these people when they get here.
Does every impoverished person in the world have a “right” to come here? It is estimated that there are around 3 billion impoverished people in the world. How many of them can come over here and sign up for welfare?
Immigration, World Poverty & Gumballs [Essential Version]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubGzbj59_Xs
Don’t be so quick to assume. I obey various laws to various degrees, depending on what I think I can get away with doing.
But again, so what? If someone pulls a gun on me and demands my wallet, I would probably give it to them. That doesn’t mean I condone robbery.
You may find it comforting to simply shrug your shoulders and accept tyranny.
I do not.
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.
“To put it more simply, I don’t give any more of a shit about what the government says in 2017 than about what they said in 1817.”
Yet I’m sure you pay your taxes, obey traffic laws, and stop for the Police like everyone else. Please come back to reality where laws actually do matter.
Here’s what “Mr. Libertarian” Murray N. Rothbard had to say on this subject:
“This is from Murray Rothbard’s Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State. It was published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1994.
IV. THE PURE ANARCHO-CAPITALIST MODEL
I raise the pure anarcho-capitalist model in this paper, not so much to advocate the model per se as to propose it as a guide for settling vexed current disputes about nationality. The pure model, simply, is that no land areas, no square footage in the world, shall remain “public”; every square foot of land area, be they streets, squares, or neighborhoods, is privatized. Total privatization would help solve nationality problems, often in surprising ways, and I suggest that existing states, or classical liberal states, try to approach such a system even while some land areas remain in the governmental sphere.
Open Borders, or the Camp of-the Saints Problem
The question of open borders, or free immigration, has become an accelerating problem for classical liberals. This is first, because the welfare state increasingly subsidizes immigrants to enter and receive permanent assistance, and second, because cultural boundaries have become increasingly swamped. I began to rethink my views on immigration when, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it became clear that ethnic Russians had been encouraged to flood into Estonia and Latvia in order to destroy the cultures and languages of these peoples. Previously, it had been easy to dismiss as unrealistic Jean Raspail’s anti-immigration novel The Camp of the Saints, in which virtually the entire population of India decides to move, in small boats, into France, and the French, infected by liberal ideology, cannot summon the will to prevent economic and cultural national destruction. As cultural and welfare-state problems have intensified, it became impossible to dismiss Raspail’s concerns any longer.
However, on rethinking immigration on the basis of the anarcho-capitalist model, it became clear to me that a totally privatized country would not have “open borders” at all. If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as “closed” as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.
Under total privatization, many local conflicts and “externality” problems-not merely the immigration problem-would be neatly settled. With every locale and neighborhood owned by private firms, corporations, or contractual communities, true diversity would reign, in accordance with the preferences of each community. Some neighborhoods would be ethnically or economically diverse, while others would be ethnically or economically homogeneous. Some localities would permit pornography or prostitution or drugs or abortions, others would prohibit any or all of them. The prohibitions would not be state imposed, but would simply be requirements for residence or use of some person’s or community’s land area. While statists who have the itch to impose their values on everyone else would be disappointed, every group or interest would at least have the satisfaction of living in neighborhoods of people who share its values and preferences. While neighborhood ownership would not provide Utopia or a panacea for all conflicts, it would at least provide a “second-best” solution that most people might be willing to live with.”
“crude legal positivism that you are endorsing.”
I’m being realistic rather than basing policy on the fantasy that we are currently in a libertarian society.
Stefan Molyneux: 62% of Illegal Immigrant Households on Welfare | Steven Camarota and Stefan Molyneux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjjSG705Inc
Stefan Molyneux: The Truth About Immigration and Welfare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u1J6EEhkyM
And by the way, rights are not “established” by constitutional amendments.
No, I’m using an analogy to demonstrate the absurdity of the crude legal positivism that you are endorsing.
To put it more simply, I don’t give any more of a shit about what the government says in 2017 than about what they said in 1817.
Rights are universal, not based on regime gang lines. And it doesn’t preserve rights in this nation to empower a police state that interferes in employment, stops people on suspicion of crossing regime gang lines without permission, rounds people and deports them, etc, etc.
A lot of refugees spend a short time on welfare. By and large, they don’t stay on it for very long, so “ended up on welfare” is a bogus measure. It doesn’t account for what they do once they go on to get jobs and start businesses.
Additionally, Trump’s order is not just about refugees. It includes people who are travelling for work, visiting family members, flying in for medical procedures which are not available anywhere else, etc, etc.
And what makes you think those other countries are willing and able to accept more refugees?
The US played a big role in starting and perpetuating the wars that are creating the current refugee crisis so should accept a lot of the responsibility in this.
I’m more concerned about rights being preserved in this nation than granting rights to people in other nations.
Please, don’t get him started with the bogus and twisted statistics. I sense a flood coming on…
Exactly.
“the early 1800s, you’d have been “laughed out of court” if you had argued that blacks and whites should have the same rights, or that men and women should have the same rights.”
You’re comparing the interpretation of the authority of the federal government with rights later established by constitutional amendment.
Human beings aren’t “imports.” The bogus arguments and statistics about immigrant voting and welfare dependency are covered at https://openborders.info/sitemap/ and, if they weren’t bogus, would still logically “justify” the other statist policies that have been mentioned in this thread in the same way that they “justify” immigration restrictions. Of course we don’t live in a libertarian country, but the goal of LP statements is to advocate for libertarian policies, as this one does.
So what? In the early 1800s, you’d have been “laughed out of court” if you had argued that blacks and whites should have the same rights, or that men and women should have the same rights. That doesn’t mean those arguments were wrong.
This is the key point. Arguments in favor of restricting immigration, based on the idea that immigrants may do bad things, are no different than arguments in favor of gun control, based on the idea that guns may be used to do bad things.
We don’t live in a libertarian country. If we ever want to we’re not going to do it by importing people dependant on welfare and voting for statist policies.
“We don’t live under libertarian ideas. ”
Did someone argue we do? We were talking about A) what the LP supports B) what would be justified if we were to grant that the composition of the future electorate is a sufficient basis for government policy.
“There wouldn’t be a welfare state attracting immigrants.”
The welfare state is not what attracts immigrants.
“The naturalization/immigration distinction may be valid but it is not the recognized interpretation under the Constitution.”
Again, laws and constitutional interpretations change, so that’s not relevant.
“forced sterilization was legal in the past in the US”
Actually the Court case recognizing this as valid has not technically been overturned. However, it is a matter of due process. Certain rights may be taken if done so with due process.
We don’t live under libertarian ideas. If we did this wouldn’t be an issue. There wouldn’t be a welfare state attracting immigrants.
The naturalization/immigration distinction may be valid but it is not the recognized interpretation under the Constitution. If you tried to use that interpretation you’d be laughed out of court due to the centuries of jurisprudence that says otherwise.
Also, given that forced sterilization was legal in the past in the US, obviously the constitution has been interpreted differently at times. So the question still stands.
Libertarian ideas aren’t based on the US constitution, but on universal principles. And the constitution only allows the federal government to regulate naturalization, not immigration.
It would violate due process to take away the right to procreate based on politics. The right for foreigners to migrate to the United States, however, has never been established as a right under the Constitution.
So what? Laws change.
“The right to migrate is no less a right than the right to procreate.”
Legally it isn’t.
The right to migrate is no less a right than the right to procreate. Forced sterilization has been practiced in the past, including in the US. If the ends justify the means, and the ends are “who can vote away rights,” then the government becomes justified in doing all sorts of things, not just immigration restrictions.
For example, poll taxes, forced sterilization, taking away citizenships, and on and on and on.
This is nice, but the welfare usage and crime statistics clearly indicate that a large percentage of Muslim migrants are NOT peaceful people,
Where did you get such info, Andy? I spend much of each day on the Internet, and I have not seen such statistics.
“When people are born in this country and can vote away rights, is it equally reasonable to control who has children?”
Obviously not. People in the country are already a part of it so you can’t take away the existing right to procreate. Immigrants do not have any existing rights taken away by not being allowed to enter the country.
If these Middle Eastern refugees had arrived here, what do you think the odds are that they would have ended up on welfare? I would wager pretty damn high.
It would not surprise me if they were using US tax payer funds to get here.
If anyone is really concerned about helping these people, it is far more efficient to use the money to help them in some other country that has a lower cost of living than the USA. You could help a good 10 times or more as many people for the same cost as it takes to help them here.
Don, have you considered the fact that a) there is a lot of internal debate on this issue in the libertarian movement, and that not everyone supports the same policy, and b) the LP national platform does not actually call for open borders, as it says that it is OK to restrict people who are a threat to security, health, or property.
It ought to be apparent to all that the bigger issues here are the welfare/warfare state, land privatization, and freedom of association (which includes the freedom to not associate, which we don’t really have so much anymore, as exemplified by Gary “bake the cake” Johnson).
When people are born in this country and can vote away rights, is it equally reasonable to control who has children?
When people can come into the country and vote away rights, it is reasonable to control who can come into the country.
And a house w/ dogs that never opens its doors smells like dog shit….
-1 for Andy. The open borders policy is one of the best things about the Libertarians. The crime and welfare statistics actually show that immigrants are better in these respects than native born Americans, and even if this weren’t true, immigration restrictions still would not be morally justifiable under the libertarians’ “non-aggression principle.” Analogies between a nation-state and private property are bogus.
This is a nation of immigrants, now as it always has been, and should continue to be.
+1 for Andy.
The open border policy is one of the primary reasons that folks like me will never again support the LP or any LP candidates. A nation without borders is like a house without doors – the insides will be quickly destroyed by opportunists and vandals.
Take off your white robes, snowflake.
This is nice, but the welfare usage and crime statistics clearly indicate that a large percentage of Muslim migrants are NOT peaceful people, and this is even more apparent when you examine their political ideologies.
Take off your political correctness goggles.