Illegal immigrants are to immigration what shoplifters are to shopping.
Let me continue with the analogy. We have a store that makes the process of dealing with the sales clerks very complicated, with people having to stand in line at the cash register for years. Maybe we would not have so much shoplifting if we fixed the checkout process–or at least if we offered an “express lane” to people willing to pay a fee of $5,000 or so.
If so many people come to the US illegally from Mexico, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, then how many more would come legally from Niger? Or Bangladesh? Or even Mexico? This is an empirical question, though I don’t imagine the empirical answer would change anybody’s mind. This is not a problem that ever solves itself, despite what some people may wish.
Wow, that’s dumb.
These are better:
Illegal immigrants are to immigration what fugitive slaves are to slavery.
Illegal immigrants are to immigration what front-of-the-bus riders are to Jim Crow.
And, no, I’m not saying that immigration law is as morally bad as slavery, or that immigration opponents are racist. I’m saying that laws that abrogate rights due to a condition of birth are immoral, and violating them is praiseworthy.
MikeP, why do you assume that all (or even the majority) of the people of the world should subscribe to your morality?
I can assure you that I do not care about it and I will resist any attempt to enforce it in the political jurisdiction I live in.
I am sick of libertarian moral hypocrisy, you see. There are people out there who do not want to deal with immigrants and yet, instead of allowing them to pursue their lives as they see fit and THEN pushing your ideology over those willing to accept it, you are trying to make it mandatory for everyone. I literally cannot imagine a more arrogant and two – faced political philosophy than the one claiming to be about personal freedom and willing to subjugate the freedom of some because they do not agree with the libertarian narrative.
Petar,
Replace “the political jurisdiction I live in” with “South Africa” and “immigrants” with “blacks and coloreds”, and you have the argument against ending Apartheid.
Would you make that argument too?
There is nothing analogous between the two. Immigrants hava absolutely no right to enter private property and all property held by state is the PRIVATE property of its citizens.
I am sick and tired of this hypocricy. Just answer the question without exeplifying Goodwin’s law of racism you have so conveniently picked up from your liberal allies:
Why are you willing to thread on the freedom of people who do not want to associate with immigrants in any way and live in one political jurisdiction with them in the first place? Why don’t you fight for the right of seccession and free association and then after achieving it plead for open borders to the groups of people willing to accept it – but instead you find it perfectly reasonable to demand open borders and FORCE people who do not want to be a part of your social experiment to participate in it?
Cognitive dissonance much?
There is everything analogous about the two. South Africa defined its citizenry by law, just as the US does. And that law labeled citizens those it wished to and made those it didn’t citizens of homelands, rendering them aliens.
Then, accepting hook line and sinker your definition of state property (e.g., “…Parliament may make any encroachment it chooses upon the life, liberty or property of any individual subject to its sway…” — Appellate Division, Union of South Africa, Sachs v. Minister of Justice, 1934), the state abrogated individual rights with complete abandon.
Indeed it is hard to find a better definition of Apartheid than “the freedom of people who do not want to associate with immigrants in any way and live in one political jurisdiction with them in the first place.” Define who you don’t want to live with as “immigrants” or “aliens” or “citizens of the homelands”, and have at it.
MikeP, I do not know whether you are being stupid or deliberately delusional.
The difference between the two is the fact that citizens do not happen at any point to share a jurisdiction with non-citizens prior to their comming to the said political jurisdiction while AGREEING completely with the rights they are allocated by the already existing citizens. That does not apply to appertheid.
And this is libertarian hypocricy in action:
“Parliament may make any encroachment it chooses upon the life, liberty or property of any individual subject to its sway…”
This does not apply to exclusion of non-citizens. The only dominion it has over them is to exclude them from entering the territory the sovereign claims. The moment they enter the territory of the state is the moment they accept the consequences of their actions – the freedom to act and bear the consequences of your acting that libertarians hold so dear when it is not contrary to their ideology. If the state is willing to defend its territorial integrity with deadly force and has announced that beforehand by its laws, then there is NOTHING non-citizens can demand of it in case they have broken the law. You act – and then accept the consequences. They are not owners of anything in the state and have ZERO rights to enter it unless granted permission by the sovereign who is the vehicle with which the real owner of everything in the state – the citizenry – voices its opinion.
“Define who you don’t want to live with as “immigrants” or “aliens” or “citizens of the homelands”, and have at it.”
Any group of people that I find intolerable. Now you tell me why I should be forced to live with them in one political jurisdiction. Mind you, I do not want to forbid people who want to associate with said groups to do so – just far away from me and not within THE BOUNDARIES of anything I own either fully or partially.
But it is you – the libertarian hypocrite – who wants to make me accept into my property and in my political community people I do not want to associate with, effectively stealing my share of the collective property by making it smaller when inviting more and more people in without my consent. Because, you see, this is your hypocrycy – you deny people like me our right of free political association and control of the property – including the collective property – we own in the name of your ideology.
Immigrants hava absolutely no right to enter private property…
…except when invited by the owner — a right of the owner you seem content to abrogate.
…and all property held by state is the PRIVATE property of its citizens.
I agree that property strictly held by the state, such as an air force base or a courthouse, is the private property of its citizens.
I disagree that commons and rights of way are state property.
I am still waiting for the answer to my question, MikeP. Do it or prove yourself an irrational hypocrite.
I do not recognize any legitimate authority of a collection of individuals to claim dominion over unowned or unclaimed territory and then violate individual rights on it on the grounds that the unowned or unclaimed territory — including rights of way inseparable from the property rights of privately owned parcels within the territory — is the collective’s property.
So, to answer your question, there’s no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
There is all the cognitive dissonance in the world here. The fact that YOU do not recognize something does not matter in this argument – you are no one, have no legislative authority other full authority in the private property you own fully and than that you have been granted by your political community in your partially owned collective property. Not recognizing any authority of claiming dominion is as relevant here as not recognizing gravity – sadly for your own sad little world, it exists, most people accept it and have the right to enforce it in their political dominion. If you cannot deal with that, I am all for your right to seperate, take your private property or sell it along with you part of the collective property at maket prices and do whatever you want with your remaining property and money – WHILE not tresspassing on the property rights of those that do not agree with you. A bargain you will not give to me as you consider it perfectly acceptable to not allow me and like minded people to separate, establish our own political community and exclude from it EVERY group of people and EVERY individual we want to. Talk to me about hypocricy…
Also, you have absolutely no ground on which to justify access of non-citizens to the commons when since the beginning of every single country in the world (especially European countries) it was blatantly obvious that the commons were there for citizens and citizens only.
“except when invited by the owner ”
The owner does not own the commons by himself. He owns them with other people who have the right to block his usage if they are not content with it. The only answer to that is to allow people to seperate themselves politically (and probably geographically) first at their will and ONLY after that push for open borders – and be greeting with mocking and laughing almost universally. But that is counter to the libertarian goals and libertarian narrative – hence the hypocricy and the logical inconsistencies in the libertarian stance on the issue.
So, it’s ok for someone born in Petarland to walk down the street but not someone born a yard outside Petarland? And the harm that person is doing is what, exactly?
You are free to associate with whom you wish. You are free to limit access to your PRIVATE property and gatherings to whomever you see fit and exclude whom you like.
But once you restrict movement of otherwise peaceful people through space which you do not outright own, you are violating morality. You are controlling another human being, with whom you have no contract or quarrel.
Here’s the bullet you must bite. You must weigh the life of another human being, stranger though he may be, against your collectivist principals.
What you call ‘hypocrisy’, libertarians call ‘moral consistency’.
“But once you restrict movement of otherwise peaceful people through space which you do”
I own part of it and that is the point. As long as public property exists in its current form, the owners have the right to restric its usage. Get that concept in your thick skull.
” You are controlling another human being, with whom you have no contract or quarrel. ”
I have. Immigrants are practically stealing my property because when they get citizenship (without my permission), they are making my share in the commonly held property smaller – and this is something I have never conceded to. They are also changing the environment I live in for the worse – and there is your quarrel. To top it all, because of all the anti-discrimination and hate speech laws (especially in Europe where I live) my effective freedom of speech and freedom of discrimination in the boundaries of my OWN private property is taken away from me – a fact you libertarian hypocrites wave away because you care more about the non-existant positive rights of foreigners to come to my homeland than about my negative rights to not have my personal freedoms trampled on by the likes of you.
” You must weigh the life of another human being, stranger though he may be, against your collectivist principals. ”
I must do nothing of that sort. I do not have any positive obligations towards other people other than the ones I have explicitly consented to (none as far as I know) and the positive obligation not to take their private property with violence or take their life while they have not commited an agression against me or my property. Violating the boundaries of my political jurisdiction without the explicit consent of the real sovereign – the property owners taken as a whole – is a clear transgression of the latter, hence I am justified in reacting in whatever way I see fit.
“What you call ‘hypocrisy’, libertarians call ‘moral consistency’.”
Calling a frog a snake does not change reality. You libertarians are on par in your hypocricy only with marxists and commited social liberals willing to trample on personal freedoms in order to advance their agenda.
Petar, leaving aside the issue of communal property rights, what problems do you see with immigrants in your particular context? I have lived in a border state in the US and I saw little problem with the hispanic immigrants there. They did jobs that American citizens did not want to do, at wages they likely would not accept. I talked to one American guy who was against illegal immigration, seemed like a nice, well-informed guy but he was adamant on this topic. Later, I found out that his wife was illegal and had not normalized after a decade in the US, even though she was married to a citizen. Another neighbor supposedly put up a sign telling illegals to get out, but he supposedly was married to an illegal too. So there seems to be a lot of hypocrisy here.
Petar, you’re hilarious! Thank you for the laugh!
Couple points…
1. ‘Community held property’ is not *your* property by definition. Therefore your direct ‘consent’ as to it’s distribution and use is not necessary.
2. ‘They are also changing the environment I live in for the worse…’. Can you quantify this? What does ‘worse’ mean? Why should your definition of ‘worse’ be the metric used as opposed to, say, mine?
3. Contrarily, libertarians such as myself have no issue with you speaking how you wish and associating with whom you see fit, be it in private or in business transactions. The limits to your freedom of speech and association are more rightly laid at the feet of an overreaching (collectivist) State rather than owing to any libertarian principle. You’re arguing past me here.
4. Saying that a human being walking down your street is somehow ‘an agression against me or my property’ merely due to an accident of birth is a real stretch. If you live in Germany or France, how are you going to identify the Irish/Russian/American illegal immigrant who’s taking that stroll (without violating their right not to be aggressed against)? It really rather seems that you merely don’t ‘like’ (a subjective attitude/value) foreigners, which is your right to feel, but does not qualify you as the arbiter of their movement. You’ll have to do better to justify yourself.
5. ‘Calling a frog a snake does not change reality’. Agreed!
6. ‘You libertarians are on par in your hypocricy only with marxists…’. Again Petar, you are hilarious! Keep reaching for those stars, my friend!
Nothing of substance here, as expected. No understanding of what commonly held property is managed and why you cannot go against the will of the owners who do not agree with you.
Just to qualify:
“What does ‘worse’ mean? Why should your definition of ‘worse’ be the metric used as opposed to, say, mine?”
In your hilariously inadequate first post, you claimed that I should have “no quarrel” with immigrants. I gave you the reason why I have. I do not care whether you or anyone else shares my reasons – that is completely irrelevant and if you had even the slightest bit of reading comprehension and the ability to track your own arguments, you would not have made such a blatant logical error.
Go live in the dreamworld. Meanwhile, those of us who live in reality will continue to laugh at you.
Also, all the goods are sold on consignment and anyone the “shoplifters” interact with do so voluntarily and for mutual gain… I guess the analogy breaks breaks down around there.
Petar, you are rather insulting, and unnecessarily so. It’s a sign that you do not have much confidence in your own opinions. Religious people and political partisans use the same tactic. Rather sad, because I really want to understand where you’re coming from if I’m in error, but your manner of discourse leaves much to be desired.
That said, I’ll respond thusly:
If I am living next door to you, Petar, and decide I want to hire someone to care for my lawn, or someone to clean my home, or someone to nanny my children, what business is it of yours weather I hire a neighbor or a Turkish immigrant (legal or not)?
Who elected you the king over my life to decide whom I can or cannot associate/transact with? I know I didn’t vote for you!
Since they are gainfully employed, they can afford to pay their own way, pay whatever taxes are applied to their transactions, and are contributing to society (by helping me). So long as you’re not told of my transaction, Petar, who here is being harmed?
If you point to their use of ‘common spaces’, I say the use of that space is being paid for by the taxes imposed upon my employee’s other transactions (as mentioned). If you point to their consumption, I say that their service to me frees me to produce more in compensation, so the effect is minimal to the point of being immeasurable.
So, if you don’t know about my employee, Petar, how *exactly* are you being harmed by their presence in the country?
Petar apparently lives (or wants to live) in a tribal community in which decisions are arrived at unanimously. Which is fine for him, but isn’t an optimal situation for me. Create your own enclave, carve out your own neighborhood and exclude whom you like and – so long as everyone votes together – there’s no problem with me. However, I have a hard time thinking that even in a country as small as Luxembourg or Bosnia would be able to achieve that kind of consensus, much less Germany or France. So to suggest an restrictive immigration policy for such a large area based upon tribalism is obtuse (along with being immoral). Talk about a dreamland.