Tragic that Libertarians can't find the sense in rational border policy. It's the one issue preventing them having a serious influential political party.
The Libertarian idea of Open-Borders is a rational take in a truly free-society, but it is incredibly dangerous under our current regime where we legitimize the idea of majority backed coercion and forceful wealth distribution.
The smart libertarians do not focus on or agitate for open-borders but will admit that ideological consistency demands that property owners be given full control over their property.
It's the same reason you don't see Ron Paul advocating for an immediate cessation of social-security or the civil-rights act despite admitting that in principle he opposes both. As a practical matter they are very low on the totem-pole of things that need fixing and focusing on those issues first may well make things worse.
It's an amusing conversation to have on AnCaps.win. It get's to a point where they seem to devolve or regress to a level on par with delusional Bernie economics fantasy.
"If we stop giving welfare nobody will want to come to America"
"So, people will choose to starve and die of AIDs in Somalia instead of coming here because no EBT card?"
"Let's change the subject because I'd like to continue playing silly kiddie pretend games".
Here is what I think is an intelligent and detailed take on immigration from a Libertarian perspective (Milton Friedman):
I’ve always been amused by a kind of a paradox. Suppose you go around and ask people: ‘The United States before 1914, as you know, had completely free immigration. Anybody could get in a boat and come to these shores and if landed at Ellis Island he was an immigrant. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?’ You will find that hardly a soul who will say that it was a bad thing. Almost everybody will say it was a good thing. ‘But what about today? Do you think we should have free immigration?’ ‘Oh, no,’ they’ll say, ‘We couldn’t possibly have free immigration today. Why, that would flood us with immigrants from India, and God knows where. We’d be driven down to a bare subsistence level.’
What’s the difference? How can people be so inconsistent? Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There’s a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today. Why not?
Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promises a certain minimal level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not. Then it really is an impossible thing.
If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.
But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I’m exaggerating, it wouldn’t go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values.
Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal.
That’s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it’s no good. Why? Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don’t qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They’re hard workers, they’re good workers, and they are clearly better off.
Now in the time since these statements were made, laws have changed, immigration is still regulated but we give illegal immigrants taxpayer funded benefits even though they are illegal and so illegal immigration has the same negative effects Friedman calls out as legal immigration in our welfare state.
Other distortions have happened as well, minimum-wage laws create an effective subsidy for illegal labor. IMO most of the problems associated with immigration are problems caused by government, but you have to roll back those issues before you can even consider opening up the country to immigration as it was before we started restricting it.
Libertarians could have their entire wish-list granted, and open borders is still a fantasy so long as there is something appealing about our country relative to the countries sending the invasion.
Unless America is a shit hole, people in Haiti will want to come here to leave Haiti. They eat mud to pretend to have food in their bellies in Haiti. They would be thrilled to live in a municipal garbage dump in the states. They would come by the billions for the chance to eat out of dumpsters in America.
A person starving in the dirt in Rwanda, would not choose that over starving in America.
"Yeah but, Americans would all have guns to defend their property"
"Uhuh, and every child in Somalia has an AK47 and an RPG and they get their limbs hacked off with machetes for stealing"
"Yeah but, they wouldn't come here, because, no unemployment benefits"
Unless America is turned in to a shit hole, there will always be incentive to come here from countries that are shit hole countries. Even if America were turned in to a shit hole, there would still be incentives when it comes to things like climate and environment.
Starve in the dirt in Somalia, or, tent on a beach in Hawaii getting fat off free sea food and fruit and wild pigs... Tough call...
Tragic that Libertarians can't find the sense in rational border policy. It's the one issue preventing them having a serious influential political party.
The Libertarian idea of Open-Borders is a rational take in a truly free-society, but it is incredibly dangerous under our current regime where we legitimize the idea of majority backed coercion and forceful wealth distribution.
The smart libertarians do not focus on or agitate for open-borders but will admit that ideological consistency demands that property owners be given full control over their property.
It's the same reason you don't see Ron Paul advocating for an immediate cessation of social-security or the civil-rights act despite admitting that in principle he opposes both. As a practical matter they are very low on the totem-pole of things that need fixing and focusing on those issues first may well make things worse.
It's an amusing conversation to have on AnCaps.win. It get's to a point where they seem to devolve or regress to a level on par with delusional Bernie economics fantasy.
"If we stop giving welfare nobody will want to come to America"
"So, people will choose to starve and die of AIDs in Somalia instead of coming here because no EBT card?"
"Let's change the subject because I'd like to continue playing silly kiddie pretend games".
Here is what I think is an intelligent and detailed take on immigration from a Libertarian perspective (Milton Friedman):
Now in the time since these statements were made, laws have changed, immigration is still regulated but we give illegal immigrants taxpayer funded benefits even though they are illegal and so illegal immigration has the same negative effects Friedman calls out as legal immigration in our welfare state.
Other distortions have happened as well, minimum-wage laws create an effective subsidy for illegal labor. IMO most of the problems associated with immigration are problems caused by government, but you have to roll back those issues before you can even consider opening up the country to immigration as it was before we started restricting it.
Libertarians could have their entire wish-list granted, and open borders is still a fantasy so long as there is something appealing about our country relative to the countries sending the invasion.
Unless America is a shit hole, people in Haiti will want to come here to leave Haiti. They eat mud to pretend to have food in their bellies in Haiti. They would be thrilled to live in a municipal garbage dump in the states. They would come by the billions for the chance to eat out of dumpsters in America.
A person starving in the dirt in Rwanda, would not choose that over starving in America.
"Yeah but, Americans would all have guns to defend their property"
"Uhuh, and every child in Somalia has an AK47 and an RPG and they get their limbs hacked off with machetes for stealing"
"Yeah but, they wouldn't come here, because, no unemployment benefits"
He advocates for am end to welfare to stop the border crisis. Ron has also said he opposes birthright citizenship which would also do a lot
Exactly, birthright citizenship is another incentive for illegals to come here, especially when such citizenship confers rights to welfare.
Unless America is turned in to a shit hole, there will always be incentive to come here from countries that are shit hole countries. Even if America were turned in to a shit hole, there would still be incentives when it comes to things like climate and environment.
Starve in the dirt in Somalia, or, tent on a beach in Hawaii getting fat off free sea food and fruit and wild pigs... Tough call...
Illegals would choose to stay in their shit hole country and starve to death rather than come to America?
Bernie level fantasy. Willful delusion.
Citizenship is moot when you have no country.
Can't think a single other issue that prevents me from fully embracing their entire platform.
But yeah, America no longer existing as a country is a deal breaker.
Their open-border policy keeps Libertarianism in the "stuff conservatives did in college" category.