Liberty For All Means Immigrants Too
Posted by Darian Worden on Jul 30, 2010 in Commentary • 44 commentsIt is disappointing to see people express concern for liberty while advocating government restrictions on the liberty of immigrants. Immigrants should not be seen as a threat to liberty, but as potential allies in the fight for liberty.
Liberty means nothing if the freedom of any group is placed above individual liberty. And people do not stop being individuals if they are born in a different country. All individuals have the right to claim the fullest liberty to do as they will, provided they do not invade the liberty of others. Moving to a different part of the world and trying to improve one’s life — with or without permission from a government — does not violate anyone’s liberty.
National borders are invasive of liberty. Most, including the US-Mexico border, were drawn by conquest at the orders of elitists in capitals. Borders designate which politicians are to control which people. They invade the lives of individuals who want to interact with people from the other side or to escape the conditions that governments have inflicted on people within certain boundaries.
The reality of border enforcement is brutal and draconian. Patrols at the safest crossings send immigrants into the most dangerous desert areas. Many die slowly, and others trespass desperately. A series of secret prisons, some in warehouses not designed for long-term confinement, form a modern American gulag system (see “America’s Secret ICE Castles,” a Nation report by Jacqueline Stevens). New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee (nj-civilrights.org) has documented much evidence of widespread, pervasive abuse of immigration detainees. One of the many who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention was Jason Ng. A father of two who was arrested only for immigration paperwork violations compounded by bureaucratic error, Ng died after being refused medical treatment.
Studies suggest that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natives. But whatever the case, punishing people for crimes that other individuals have committed is fundamentally unjust. And crime is incentivized by any form of prohibition, including the War on Drugs, and by locking people out of the mainstream by assigning them the status of “illegal” humans.
Immigrants do not generally take advantage of the US welfare system any more so than natives do. In the article “Immigration: An Open or Closed Door,” the International Society for Individual Liberty notes that immigrants generally pay much in taxes and receive little benefits from services. And if they did pay less in taxes, that just means the monster state gets less to use to harm people.
Immigrants do not take jobs from natives. Society does not contain a fixed number of jobs or a fixed amount of wealth. Jobs are created when there is a demand that needs to be filled, and value is created from production and trade — by the interactions of numerous individuals. Politicians, not workers, make the economy more rigid and less productive. They stunt economic growth through numerous means including land use regulations, restrictions that hamper starting businesses, corporate welfare, inflation, and military-industrial-complex waste.
And nobody has a higher claim to a job because of national or ethnic status. Supporting nationalist ideas of privilege means standing with the politicians who are making things worse, instead of with people who are trying to get by. Those concerned about job loss and wage reduction should stand with immigrants for higher wages and better conditions instead of deepening the divisions that can be used against workers.
Any aspect of culture that cannot survive without being enforced by government agencies is unfit to exist. English has been around long enough and is spoken in enough places that it can easily continue to be a language of communication between multiple ethnic groups. And there is nothing wrong with teaching English to immigrants or knowing other languages. What business is it of anyone else’s if some people want to talk to each other differently? Culture is enhanced by interaction. If it is locked in place by isolation it is more likely to stagnate than strengthen.
Immigrants, including illegal immigrants, have good reason to be against the government and for true liberty. Widespread cooperation among immigrant and native freedom-lovers will make our would-be masters tremble at the sound of advancing liberty.
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS.org) News Analyst Darian Worden is a left-libertarian writer and activist. He hosts an internet radio show, Thinking Liberty. His essays and other works can be viewed at DarianWorden.com.
Darian,
I posted a response to some questions you had previously challenged me with on this site a few weeks ago. I don't know if you ever saw it or not. Here's the link:
http://c4ss.org/content/3099#comment-2899
I agree with certain points you raise here, but the problem I have with the overall flavor of your argument is that it's basically an argument from abstraction: "National borders are invasive of liberty." I would prefer to frame the issue of immigration within the context of the concrete situation in which immigration actually takes place. What are the forces that drive immigration at the present time and who stands to gain the most from such population transfers? You're already familiar with my views on these matters:
http://c4ss.org/content/3099#comment-2801
I would argue that not only do a wide assortment of statist, corporatist, and elite interests benefit from mass immigration, but that such immigration has serious consequences of an economic, cultural, political, ecological, and demographic nature, and potentially very serious consequences for civil peace. I'm also skeptical of the claim that mass immigration results in an overall net reduction in the sum total of statism. You may disagree with some or all of this or you may be inclined to argue for unrestricted immigration even though the heavens fall, on the grounds that the particular theory of justice you hold to demands it. But I would argue that your theory of justice is itself a particular value, rooted in the cultural norms, historic traditions, and intellectual heritage of a particular strand of a particular civilization, i.e. the strand of Anglo-American liberalism within the wider context of Western civilization. The public debates we hear today about things like "immigrants' rights" would be considered laughable in many
non-Western societies, and in most historic societies. Mexico, for instance, certainly does not have open borders and carte blanche immigration.
But I suspect you don't really believe that consequentialist arguments are irrelevant, because if you did you wouldn't bother to offer an attempted refutation of them as you do in your essay. Let me ask you this: Would you be willing to accept unlimited immigration into the United States by national socialists, communists, or Christian or Islamic fundamentalists, even if tens of millions of them came? If so, then it shows you would follow your ideological principles even to the point of political, economic, cultural, or perhaps even physical suicide. If not, then it shows you really do not regard abstract individualism as the absolute value that you claim it is.
Keith,
I think my motivation can best be summed up as, consistently advocating for individual liberty undermines state control, and people who see that you care about their liberty are more apt to (though obviously not automatically going to) care about your liberty. And if people are free to move against the wishes of states, that is a blow struck for freedom and against states.
As to some of your specific points:
"I would argue that not only do a wide assortment of statist, corporatist, and elite interests benefit from mass immigration"
I'm not sure if I'm actually familiar with your specific argument on this point. If it is a lengthy one I might not be able to read through it until next week. I would argue that the most powerful interests control the borders, and borders serve to concentrate wealth in some hands and make it easier to extract it from others. In terms of statist globalism, borders define different administrative units where different policies of exploitation will be undertaken.
"such immigration has serious consequences of an economic, cultural, political, ecological, and demographic nature, and potentially very serious consequences for civil peace."
Averting catastrophes is one reason I consider international solidarity and tolerance to be so important.
"But I would argue that your theory of justice is itself a particular value, rooted in the cultural norms, historic traditions, and intellectual heritage of a particular strand of a particular civilization, i.e. the strand of Anglo-American liberalism within the wider context of Western civilization."
Just because an idea has first been expressed in one culture doesn't make it incomprehensible to other cultures. Modern anarchist movements have arisen on multiple continents and in multiple cultures.
"Would you be willing to accept unlimited immigration into the United States by national socialists, communists, or Christian or Islamic fundamentalists, even if tens of millions of them came?"
People who come with the announced intention of organized coercion would constitute an invasion. If large numbers came of their own accord I would make the ground unfertile for their ideas to take hold and fertile for resistance to any violence they committed, but not prohibit them from living with their ideas.
"If so, then it shows you would follow your ideological principles even to the point of political, economic, cultural, or perhaps even physical suicide. If not, then it shows you really do not regard abstract individualism as the absolute value that you claim it is."
I don't think that following good principles is suicidal. I try to see how action can align with principles. And individualism has such a universal element to it can really only be applied broadly.
People can certainly cluster their property together to create a large area that excludes certain people, but the society they created there wouldn't be libertarian. And those who wish to exclude certain nationalities from areas usually seem to be in favor of more violent and widespread segregation.
Keith, don't you have a white supremacist meeting to be at, celebrating SB1070?
God, what I wouldn't give to put a bat to your racist face.
See you in Greensboro, Jesse.
Darian,
Thank you for your civil reply.
"I’m not sure if I’m actually familiar with your specific argument on this point. If it is a lengthy one I might not be able to read through it until next week."
I summarized my views on this question in this piece I did for LRC a few years ago:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/preston7.html
"I would argue that the most powerful interests control the borders, and borders serve to concentrate wealth in some hands and make it easier to extract it from others. In terms of statist globalism, borders define different administrative units where different policies of exploitation will be undertaken."
That's where we disagree. It's been pretty well established that the consensus among the entire array of elite opinion-neoconservatives, globalists, liberals, leftists, "free-market" libertarians- is that national borders should eventually be abolished. For instance, what about the revelations that the Labour Party aimed to import mass numbers of immigrants into Britain in order to make the U.K. more multicultural and secure their party's grip on power? Why is the Obama administration suing Arizona over its immigration law? Why did the Bush administration cook up amnesty plans for illegal immigrants only to back off in the face of public opinion? Why did the Reagan administration implement an amnesty policy in 1986?
"“such immigration has serious consequences of an economic, cultural, political, ecological, and demographic nature, and potentially very serious consequences for civil peace.”
Averting catastrophes is one reason I consider international solidarity and tolerance to be so important."
I'd recommend the works of the late ecologist Garret Hardin on these questions.
"Just because an idea has first been expressed in one culture doesn’t make it incomprehensible to other cultures. Modern anarchist movements have arisen on multiple continents and in multiple cultures."
Sure, but the receptiveness of a culture to an idea will certainly be affected by pre-existing cultural foundations. For example, anarchism has generally been more popular in Catholic countries than in Protestant ones, and anarchism has assumed a more individualistic character in the Anglo-countries than in continental European ones.
"If large numbers came of their own accord I would make the ground unfertile for their ideas to take hold and fertile for resistance to any violence they committed, but not prohibit them from living with their ideas."
That may work up to a certain point, but the larger their numbers, the more difficult it will be to sustain such a stance. Demographic overrun is entirely possible in the real world.
"People can certainly cluster their property together to create a large area that excludes certain people, but the society they created there wouldn’t be libertarian."
That's why left-libertarianism is a self-contradictory and ultimately self-defeating philosophy. Combining private property rights and free association with demands for liberal universalism is unworkable given the diversity of humanity. All cultures, religions, ethnicities, etc. have liberal and conservative strands. Otherness is an inevitability. And there's a point where liberalism taken to extremes becomes in and of itself a force for authoritarianism and intolerance, as our friend "AnarchoJesse" has ably demonstrated.
Unlike the majority of supposed "anarchists", I have no problem advocating a diversity of tactics, and I have no problem saying out right that nonviolence only enables and protects the state in most cases. You see Keith, your own white privilege has atrophied your intellect to the point that instead of promoting solidarity, you instead preach division. Instead of trying to network and identify with the those who are furthest removed from privilege and political power, you openly say exclusion should occur.
I find it especially telling that you neglect to mention the abuse and abrogation of rights that occurs when any sort of exclusionary policy is acted upon. You don't talk about how you don't have to live in fear of La Migra kicking down your door at 3 in the morning, having men with rifles tear you and your family apart, but instead how "special" your own euro-centric ideas might be. You don't talk about how you can walk down the street without having racist twits like yourself yelling "Go back to Mexico, spic" or "you're on the wrong side of town, nigger". It is my belief that the only way to keep things like this from getting out of hand is to put the fear of a baseball bat into white supremacists like you, just the same as your ilk has put the fear of the lynch mob and the immigration sweep into people of color and differing geographic origin.
Here in Prescott, Arizona, myself and a few dozen others have managed to create a grocery network to feed migrant families who are terrified to leave their homes. Families who hide under the bed as La Migra does sweeps through your obviously targeted low-income neighborhood. This is the kind of world you advocate, and with that, I come to my final point– you are necessarily agitating the oppression of people who are from somewhere else, for no other reason then that they are from somewhere else. You sit comfortably behind your computer with your privilege, making your statements about the undesirability of the "communists, national socialists, etc." without ever stopping to think that who they say they are does not change what they are– which is a human being.
As an aside, I would also like to point out that if this were happening to you, you'd agitate for resistance. Of course, far be it from the spineless supposed heirs of classical anarchism to openly state that the resistance of people of color, indigenous people and migrants is just, moral, and ultimately necessary to combat the more extreme versions of hatred that you so openly promote.
As I see it, any attempt to apply common law notions of "trespassing" without an accompanying coherent defense of the property claim in question would appear to be just an attempt to obscure naked use of force — exercised "because I say so".
Well, "obscure naked use of force-exercised 'because I say so'" is ultimately how irreconcilable differences are resolved in real-world human civilizations. It all comes down to the distinction between friend/enemy and friend/foe.
All that aside, I regard "property rights" in and of itself as a subjective value rooted in the evolved customary norms and historic traditions of particular cultures, peoples, and time periods. I discussed that a bit in a previous response to Darian:
http://c4ss.org/content/3099#comment-2899
As an example, traditional West African societies had no concept of land ownership. The idea of "property in land" was as alien to them as "property in the air" would be to us. However, these societies were also slavocratic societies where individual wealth was measured in terms of how many slaves an individual owned. The Europeans, however, had a system of property rights, as we know, though their system was the feudal model of the time, not the Lockean-liberal-bourgeoisie conception of property that modern people are familiar with. The Europeans measured individual wealth in land and the amount of land one controlled.
My best guess is that a nation or civilization dominated by anarchists would have widely varying conceptions of property depending on local cultural norms and ideological currents: syndicalist, Lockean, mutualist, distributist, anarcho-communist, allodial, tribal, clannish, communitarian, familial, geoist, religious, etc. As I've said before:
"I'm in favor of private property, not just for individuals as the Lockeans are, but also for families (as illustrated by the law of inheritance), communities ("the commons"), property rooted in ancestral traditions (for instance, the recognition of the prerogative of indigenous peoples' to their sacred burial grounds), the property of tribes and ethnic groups (their historical homelands), and of nations (their generations-long established domain)."
Property theory is simply one of those things that anarchists and libertarians disagree on, like abortion, capital punishment, childrens' rights, animal rights, the environment, and lots of other things. I don't think there can ever be a consensus on these questions, and in an anarchist-dominated society, those with incompatible views would divide and separate.
Well, Keith, I've always been the accomodating type that has no problem treating people who don't believe in natural rights as if they don't have any. At some point in time, though, you may feel compelled to change your tune about all morality being subjective. Just FYI.
In other words, the historical incidence of flawed conceptions of justice has no bearing on the necessity for there to be a perception of justice in order to sustainably exercise force.
"Well, Keith, I’ve always been the accomodating type that has no problem treating people who don’t believe in natural rights as if they don’t have any. At some point in time, though, you may feel compelled to change your tune about all morality being subjective."
How Robespierrean of you.
"the historical incidence of flawed conceptions of justice has no bearing on the necessity for there to be a perception of justice in order to sustainably exercise force."
Perhaps, but you're veering off into the realm of social psychology. Issues of that type have nothing to do with whether or not morality is a matter of objective facts like scientific principles, e.g. gravity, heliocentric solar system. Ideas like "natural rights" belong to the world of theology, not rational discourse. That said, "natural rights" may be conceptually useful as a kind of Platonic noble lie or Sorelian myth, i.e. a chimera that is helpful for propaganda purposes. But that's about it.
I suspect your views could be summarized with a paraphrase of Voltaire: "If morality did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."
My response would be a paraphrase of Bakunin: "If morality existed, it would be necessary to abolish it."
You're a Deist, I'm an atheist, so I guess the Voltaire/Bakunin dichotomy as an analogy is an apt one.
Jesse,
As I have come to expect from anarcho-leftoids such as yourself, your ignorance is matched only by your arrogance.
“You see Keith, your own white privilege has atrophied your intellect to the point that instead of promoting solidarity, you instead preach division. Instead of trying to network and identify with the those who are furthest removed from privilege and political power, you openly say exclusion should occur.”
For the record, I was a left-anarchist for years, and still am on most issues, and I used to have views very similar to yours. I was involved in the anti-apartheid movement, solidarity with Central America against Reagan’s wars, and Palestinian solidarity over twenty years ago. Where were you twenty years ago, Jesse? In the playpen or the sandbox?
“Instead of trying to network and identify with the those who are furthest removed from privilege and political power, you openly say exclusion should occur.”
Obviously, you are not familiar with my full outlook and the full body of my published work:
http://lvnationalanarchists.blogspot.com/2010/06/ten-core-demographics-of-alternative.html
I’ll refer you to this piece by Andrew Yeoman, who states the anarchist case against mass immigration as well as I could:
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/left-right/anarchism-and-immigration-restriction/
This passage in particular stands out:
“For an anarchist like myself, the ideal is to decentralize political power and increase the power of local institutions outside state control. This does not mean supporting illegal immigrants, who aren’t outside state — to the contrary. Illegals represent a minority that is trying to impose its will on the majority by fully integrating itself within the state. Illegals oppose state power just as much as they oppose capitalism, which is to say, not at all — they are here to make money and eager to take advantage of all the benefits of the welfare system. They are also seeking race replacement. In my view, deputizing the citizenry, and allowing communities to decide who has the right to reside in their territory based on custom, would be the ideal solution.”
“I find it especially telling that you neglect to mention the abuse and abrogation of rights that occurs when any sort of exclusionary policy is acted upon. You don’t talk about how you don’t have to live in fear of La Migra kicking down your door at 3 in the morning, having men with rifles tear you and your family apart…”
If you read the article I linked to in my above response to Darian, you will see that I specifically oppose that kind of “war on drugs” model of immigration enforcement:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/preston7.html
Apparently, you are not familiar with my lengthy history of anti-police state activism:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/preston9.html
http://attackthesystem.com/why-the-radical-left-should-consider-secession/
http://attackthesystem.com/american-revolutionary-vanguard-twenty-five-point-program/
http://attackthesystem.com/beyond-conservatism-reclaiming-the-radical-roots-of-libertarianism/
http://attackthesystem.com/the-richmond-city-jail-as-a-component-of-the-american-police-state/
http://attackthesystem.com/the-politicial-economy-of-the-war-on-drugs/
http://attackthesystem.com/the-last-minority/
http://attackthesystem.com/the-best-argument-against-invading-iraq/
“You don’t talk about how you can walk down the street without having racist twits like yourself yelling “Go back to Mexico, spic” or “you’re on the wrong side of town, nigger”.”
Well, racial intolerance is a two-way street, as I have frequently found as a white guy in urban environments. Blacks are 13% of the U.S. population and commit over 50% of the homicides, so it’s not like there’s not plenty of blame to go around.
“It is my belief that the only way to keep things like this from getting out of hand is to put the fear of a baseball bat into white supremacists like you,”
I find it interesting that while I have many critics within the ranks of actual white supremacists, they are able to at least comprehend what my actual views are as opposed to leftoids like you who remain clueless. And if making threats or violent conflict is what you prefer, then I can guarantee you there are plenty of folks in my camp who are capable of putting the proverbial “fear of God” into antifa punks like you. Your pathetic motley crew of grunge rockers with baseball bats isn’t particularly impressive up against more formidable types of weaponry in the hands of people who don’t mind using them.
“This is the kind of world you advocate, and with that, I come to my final point– you are necessarily agitating the oppression of people who are from somewhere else, for no other reason then that they are from somewhere else.”
For the record, I advocate amnesty and conditional or unconditional pardons for most people being held in U.S. prisons, jails, detention facilities, and so forth. With regards to illegal immigrants, I’d favor amnesty on the condition of repatriation. Barring repatriation, I’d favor prosecution according to long-standing common law standards of trespassing. There’s no “inalienable right” to go where you’re not wanted.
“You sit comfortably behind your computer with your privilege, making your statements about the undesirability of the “communists, national socialists, etc.” without ever stopping to think that who they say they are does not change what they are– which is a human being.”
I used to be an “open borders” libertarian until I actually spent some time in Europe and saw the effects of Islamic immigration there. I realized that if it wasn’t preempted and if borders were abolished completely as leftists and globalists advocate, the West would eventually be overrun by the rising population of the Third World, which would be an end to the Enlightenment civilization of the West and an invitation to colonial subjugation, just as Christianity destroyed classical Greco-Roman pagan civilization. I think that’s rather high price to pay for ideological purity. The extreme cultural liberalism that most of you leftist-libertarians advocate is ultimately contradictory and self-destructive if applied to the immigration question.
“Of course, far be it from the spineless supposed heirs of classical anarchism to openly state that the resistance of people of color, indigenous people and migrants is just, moral, and ultimately necessary to combat the more extreme versions of hatred that you so openly promote.”
You’ve got it wrong. I’m for full self-determination for the indigenous peoples of North America, American Indians, Alaskan and Hawaiian natives. One of my colleagues in ARV/ATS has a blogsite devoted to such issues:
http://aianattackthesystem.wordpress.com/
On races issues, I’ve previously advocated reparations and self-determination for the minority groups in the U.S., with complete cultural, economic, and political autonomy. At a meta-political level, I favor “separation of race and state” along the lines of separation of church and state.
http://attackthesystem.com/americans-for-self-determination/
http://attackthesystem.com/critique-of-the-americans-for-self-determination-plan-for-separatism-and-decentralism/
http://attackthesystem.com/a-calm-anarchist-look-at-race-culture-and-immigration/
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/left-right/the-separation-of-race-and-state/
I also think Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. Southwest are here to stay, which is why I’d favor dissolving states like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Southern California into Swiss-like federal canton systems where different ethnic and linguistic groups are sovereign in the territories where they are dominant.
So, Jesse, what are you going to be when you grow up? I saw where you got run out of Keene. How long before you get run out of Prescott?
Keith, you wrote,
“Would you be willing to accept unlimited immigration into the United States by national socialists, communists, or Christian or Islamic fundamentalists, even if tens of millions of them came?”
Based on the implied premise here, is there any reason not to advocate the expulsion of those already here, including those born in the US?
If necessary, but at present none of those groups are large enough to constitute a credible political or existential threat. If there was a real danger of Nazis, Commies, or fundamentalists seizing power in the U.S., then whatever defensive or preventive action necessary would be legitimate.
Why don't you hold the same standard to your own european self? I mean, you claim a heritage that undeniably pushed to eradicate the First People who inhabited the United States, which brought along the most oppressive of institutions that hadn't previously existed here before, has been responsible for more atrocities than I care to name, and has continued to support the State at every turn.
By your own admission, they should be stringing you up and evicting you.
Keith, you say that you believed in open borders until you observed it's negative effects in Europe. Likewise, we've seen the negative effects of a state that defines certain classes of people as "undesirables" based on political and religious affiliation and enacts "preventative" measures to protect us from them. The latter bothers me much more.
AnarchoJessie…until you are capable of engaging in rational debate and comprehending points of view that differ from your own, don't even bother commenting.
Keith wrote:
"I thought “racism” rather than political or religious discrimination was supposed to be the big sin with regards to immigration restriction. Why don’t you start an “Anarchists for Immigration Rights for Nazis, Commies, and Fundies”?
Would that be sufficient to get me deported as well, or do you have a soft spot for anarchists?
Alas, I live in Canada, but hell, it's a theoretical question.
Jesse,
“I mean, you claim a heritage that undeniably pushed to eradicate the First People who inhabited the United States, which brought along the most oppressive of institutions that hadn’t previously existed here before, has been responsible for more atrocities than I care to name, and has continued to support the State at every turn.”
No doubt about it. I agree with the Lega Nord on that question:
“One of its campaign posters shows the profile of a North American Indian chief, complete with feather headdress, and the words: “They had immigration imposed on them – and now they live on reservations.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/0708/p06s22-woeu.html
I’ll let an actual American Indian answer that question:
“America today is making the same mistake we Indians made nearly four centuries ago. America is letting in too many foreigners. And we Indians could end up losing this country all over again. It may come as a surprise to many white people who have been brainwashed by the media to see Indians as the ultimate liberals, but there are few groups in America today who take a dimmer view of mass immigration than the American Indian.”
http://www.vdare.com/yeagley/indian_view.htm
Tim,
“we’ve seen the negative effects of a state that defines certain classes of people as “undesirables” based on political and religious affiliation and enacts “preventative” measures to protect us from them.”
I thought “racism” rather than political or religious discrimination was supposed to be the big sin with regards to immigration restriction. Why don’t you start an “Anarchists for Immigration Rights for Nazis, Commies, and Fundies” group?
I don’t seriously expect you folks to be converted by my arguments. But when Islamic fundamentalist parties become competitive in European elections, when there’s replay of the Mexican War in the American Southwest, when the traditional ethnic groups of Europe and North America suffer the same ghastly fate as the American Indians before us, and when white Westerners suffer the same fate as white Zimbabweans, don’t say us nasty nativist types didn’t warn you.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/6927505/Film-gives-white-Zimbabwean-farmer-hope-in-struggle-against-Mugabe.html
I don't advocate deporting anyone except for illegal immigrants, and even on that question I would defer to the value judgments and policy preferences of local communities, rather than the federal government. If the people of New York, L.A., or San Francisco want to be a "sanctuary city," so be it.
"I don’t advocate deporting anyone except for illegal immigrants…"
So the native commies, fundies and Islamic jihadists can stay, or only as long as they leave political power in the hands of the "right people"?
" If the people of New York, L.A., or San Francisco want to be a “sanctuary city,” so be it."
And how will you determine what the "people of New York" want without a powerful central government?
I think you boys need to take a break from each others' throats and get back to the issue, which, I believe, was something about "liberty"? (Sad, isn't it, how that word strikes such fear into the hearts of so many Americans?) Arizona's bigot law is just one more step in America's descent into Facism. It doesn't just allow the police to detain whomever they please whenever they please, it REQUIRES them to do so. And it's based on lies. Lies about crime, lies about illegals getting government benefits, lies about illegal drugs. In fact, I think it's safe to say that everything Governor Brewer says about it is a lie.
Any law that is routinely disregarded by millions of peaceful, otherwise law-abiding people is a bad law. Any law that can only be justified with lies and hysteria is a bad law. Any law that can only be enforced by breaking other laws is a bad law. And any law that makes hard work a crime and paying taxes a felony is a bad law. I'm not a anarchist; I believe that some laws are necessary to protect the public. Arizona's bigot law protects no one, except certain politicians from well-deserved obscurity. Those politicians are playing you for fools. It's in their interest to keep us afraid of one another, regardless of the cost. And every one of them will gladly sacrifice your life and mine to further his or her own career.
Which brings me to the subject of the drug cartels and drug smuggling immigrants. Our government has the power, right now, to put the cartels out of business and put an end to smuggling. If our government stopped enabling the cartels' reign of terror, Mexico might even have a chance to stabilize enough to keep her best and brightest at home instead of dying in our deserts. An end to the endless war? Restoration of individual freedom? Saving billions of dollars and thousands of lives a year? Increasing tax revenue by eliminating the black market? These are sacrifices our so-called "leaders" are simply unwilling to make. No, they'd much rather spend their careers, and our money, putting band-aids on a mortal wound; mopping up blood while the nation bleeds to death.
[...] Liberty For All Means Immigrants Too [...]
in regards to tibet it wasn't an anarchist society however they were able to co opt it into a chinese territory.
“So the native commies, fundies and Islamic jihadists can stay, or only as long as they leave political power in the hands of the “right people”?”
More or less.
“And how will you determine what the “people of New York” want without a powerful central government?”
I’m not a New Yorker, so I don’t need to determine what the people of New York want. Regarding the political structures of municipal entities, I generally favor the model of decentralization developed by Norman Mailer:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/may/04/00014/
Here's what I don't get: let's assume that immigration has the negative qualities Keith attributes to it. Why is state immigration action the desirable response for anarchists? I can understand a viewpoint that sees mass immigration as a threat to the "larger self" – the community culture that, after all, defines itself by exclusion (a finite number of people can be members). What I don't understand is why getting the state involved wouldn't be understood by any thoroughgoing anarchist as cure worst than the disease.
National anarchists who advocate the subsidization of their local community integrity by the rest of the nation state's subjects are at best being hypocritical. I take Worden's side here, with a twist: if this community being impinged on by outsiders is so worthy of preservation, let the community provide for that preservation itself instead of looking for relief from centralized states. The best they can do is organize a patrol to augment law enforcement, while the immigration-sympathetic side is much better at decentralized coordination to effect their goals.
This isn't a case of I'm-anarchister-than-thou when comparing the movements; it's a matter of which movement is more organic, authentic, and reflecting the actual dynamics at play in a world where community location is more a matter of "the subsidy of history" than any kind of essential justice in property title. I would think that National anarchists seriously concerned about their tribes would see the police they're invoking as the greater long term threat than a bunch of brown people looking for work. Culture may be worth preserving, but not at any price.
One more thing: I think the way the anti-immigration forces organize and articulate their interests is not incidental. It reflects the essential nature of their movement: it consists of a minority of citizens, who are reacting out of fear and ignorance, and therefore cannot sustain a genuine voluntary movement that would ACTUALLY reflect a consensus among the community's they are supposedly trying to protect. In their invocation of the coercive state to realize their ends, they show their true colors as a reactionary force for an America they remember, not as defenders of a present, integrated, vibrant community rising up to meet a threat.
Rita,
Notice I have not said a word in any of my posts concerning Arizona's immigration law. Having seen a fair amount of commentary on the question from both sides, I am skeptical as to whether the law in question is as onerous as some critics are claiming. Either way, I am not concerned with it. I am not an Arizonan and wouldn't want to be (couldn't stand the climate). Politically, I would support Arizona's sovereignty on this question, but no more so than I support Iran's sovereignty. Where I disagree with you is on this statement:
"Arizona’s bigot law is just one more step in America’s descent into Fascism."
That's simply not so. However "fascist" the Arizona law may or may not be, the U.S. government has gone all out in opposing the law. The Obama administration and Holder's Justice Department have called for its complete reversal, and so far the federal courts have at least partially complied, and will probably do so further as this case goes to higher courts. American elites from across the spectrum of political ideologies have attacked the law. Hardly a sign of incipient fascism.
Anon,
"what would you do or how would you prevent if we did accomplish anarchy but with your policy in majority, china was able to invade this annarchy and corrupt it by flooding it with chinese statists thus co opting the anarchy into a statist government again(just like tibet)?"
Yes, exactly! That's what the Soviets used to do in the Balkan states and Eastern Europe. It was the recognition of this that motivated Mr. Libertarian himself, Murray Rothbard, to abandon his previous support for open borders.
what would you do or how would you prevent if we did accomplish anarchy but with your policy in majority, china was able to invade this annarchy and corrupt it by flooding it with chinese statists thus co opting the anarchy into a statist government again(just like tibet)?
Anon,
"in regards to tibet it wasn’t an anarchist society however they were able to co opt it into a chinese territory."
If our left-libertarian friends got their wish and all forms of border defense simply stood down, I wonder how long it would be before the Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Indonesians, etc. started farming out their excess populations to North America? Remember how Castro unloaded Cuba's criminal population to the U.S. when Jimmy Carter threw open the borders to the Cuban boatlift in 1980? I wonder how long it would be before the Russians and the European Union began pushing immigrants towards the U.S. with the aim of eventually securing a foothold in the U.S. state the way the Israelis have done?
There's an authoritarian flavor in this discussion over what liberties should be restored and in what order, and what totalitarian laws should be left in place or enacted until the day comes when liberty can be planned in some orderly fashion by wise philosopher kings.
Freedom is messy, and I advocate the immediate repeal of any unjust law because the infectious thing about liberty is that slippery slope ("if you repeal licensing for plumbing, why not doctors? etc.). Arguments against the repeal of unjust laws on pragmatic and utilitarian grounds have their own momentum, in the opposite direction, unfortunately. I think Keith proves that. There is nothing in his argument that rules out the moral propriety of rounding millions of people born in the US on the same grounds. Which religions and beliefs will be tolerated?
The "right to exclude" is intelligible in relation to private property rights (and I don't mean those fictitious rights claimed by state-sponsored corporate bodies). I don't know what is meant by the "right" of New York to exclude, although we might know the crushing impact and intended beneficiaries of this kind of policy.
Jeremy,
“Here’s what I don’t get: let’s assume that immigration has the negative qualities Keith attributes to it. Why is state immigration action the desirable response for anarchists?”
It’s not.
“What I don’t understand is why getting the state involved wouldn’t be understood by any thoroughgoing anarchist as cure worst than the disease.”
A case could be made for that. There are two ways of looking at it. There’s your way, but there’s also the way of applying a similar analysis to the one Carson uses concerning economic questions. Carson would argue, if I interpret him correctly, that repealing, for instance, minimum wages and other pro-labor legislation would be a bad idea within the context of the state-dominated capitalist economy, because it would only remove a piecemeal effort at curbing the effects of capitalist exploitation, while leaving the wider apparatus of exploitation in tact. In other words, given the circumstances, the overall amount of exploitation might increase.
I take a similar approach with regards to anti-discrimination laws. I favor the immediate repeal of anti-discrimination legislation when it comes to genuinely private associations, genuinely private businesses, private communities, etc. But we also have to consider the degree to which the wider society is permeated by the state, and the degree to which the corporate economy is state-perpetrated. As long as we have states, I’d argue the only fair way is for government services, jobs, benefits, etc. to be open to people of all races, religions, political affiliations, genders, etc. Likewise, I see no fundamental injustice in saying that state created or assisted corporate entities like General Motors, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, or McDonald’s cannot simply refuse jobs or service to blacks because they are black or Mormons because they are Mormons.
A similar argument could be made concerning immigration. As long as the central government demands the right to monopolize immigration policy, and in fact encourages immigration through a wide assortment of state actions, nativist movements demanding immigration restriction are not fundamentally different from labor movements demanding compensation for capitalist exploitation. An ideal situation? Of course not. But the actually existing context of a concrete situation is of abiding importance when formulating political principles.
“National anarchists who advocate the subsidization of their local community integrity by the rest of the nation state’s subjects are at best being hypocritical. I take Worden’s side here, with a twist: if this community being impinged on by outsiders is so worthy of preservation, let the community provide for that preservation itself instead of looking for relief from centralized states.”
I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think Yeoman’s article that I linked to in an above post addresses these issues fairly well. Incidentally, Yeoman attempted to post a reply on this thread and was censored. That does not speak well of the C4SS’s commitment to open debate and exchange of ideas, particularly given the fact that the likes of “AnarchoJesse” have not been censored. I think this illustrates fairly well my wider point about the tribal nature of politics. Our left-libertarian “individualists” are just another tribe with their own tribal loyalities and mores.
“The best they can do is organize a patrol to augment law enforcement, while the immigration-sympathetic side is much better at decentralized coordination to effect their goals.”
“I would think that National anarchists seriously concerned about their tribes would see the police they’re invoking as the greater long term threat than a bunch of brown people looking for work. Culture may be worth preserving, but not at any price.”
Ah! But that’s where we disagree. I do not consider “the immigration-sympathetic side” to be “much better at decentralized coordination to effect their goals.” Nor do I agree that immigration is simply a matter of “brown people looking for work.” If only it were that easy. The immigration-sympathetic side is by no means operating on the basis of “decentralized coordination.” What about all of the support immigration receives from the state? For instance, in Virginia a few years back, there was actually a serious public debate during a gubernatorial election about whether or not illegal immigrants should be eligible for in-state tuition rates at state universities. I know people who work in social services and medical professions who encounter illegal immigrants who are using public assistance programs or state-funded health care all the time. A few years ago there was a controversy involving the use of illegal immigrant labor for public construction projects by the city of Richmond. In both the U.S. and Europe, there are entire generations of immigrants, legal and illegal alike, who have been supported by state-assistance programs for years, even decades. And I’m only giving a few examples of economic support here. That says nothing about wider political, diplomatic, legal, and other forms of institutional support. For instance, it’s a well-documented fact that the Mexican government encourages immigration into the U.S., legal and illegal, while jealously guarding its own southern border.
“I think the way the anti-immigration forces organize and articulate their interests is not incidental. It reflects the essential nature of their movement: it consists of a minority of citizens,”
But public opinion polls consistently indicate that a majority citizens of all colors think present rates of immigration are too high.
“who are reacting out of fear and ignorance”
That has to be considered as ad hominem if not supported by specific facts and examples.
“therefore cannot sustain a genuine voluntary movement that would ACTUALLY reflect a consensus among the community’s they are supposedly trying to protect.”
Again, I think an analogy to Carson’s economic analysis is appropriate (btw, I’m not suggesting Carson would agree with my views on this, my guess is that he would not agree). Proponents of “vulgar libertarianism” will say, “If you anti-capitalist anarchists really know what you’re talking about, why don’t you just go start your workers’ cooperatives and family farms and anarcho-syndicalist unions and see how well you do up against Wal-Mart and McDonald’s and Chrysler?” Likewise, left-statists will say, “Why don’t you anarchists just give up your social security and unemployment benefits and see how well you do with private relief services?” But Carson has pointed out that the economy is so distorted by state permeation that alternatives to the corporate system or to the state’s welfare system have essentially been snuffed out or, to use a Marxist phrase, “swept away and made impossible” by the effects of statism itself. When have nativists ever been given the opportunity to “sustain a genuine voluntary movement that would ACTUALLY reflect a consensus among the community’s they are supposedly trying to protect” within the context of the present state system?
“In their invocation of the coercive state to realize their ends, they show their true colors as a reactionary force for an America they remember, not as defenders of a present, integrated, vibrant community rising up to meet a threat.”
Perhaps, but is this not a two-way street? Honestly speaking, do not most left-libertarians and left-anarchists see mass immigration as a good unto itself, irrespective of the state’s role in fostering or prohibiting it? How many left-libertarians and left-anarchists are going out of their way to oppose state support for immigration? Additionally, their rhetoric indicates their belief that the state is some kind of monolithic conspiracy. Pro-immigration anarchists have asked me, “How can you say the state supports immigration in light of arrests for immigration violations, sweeps, so-called ‘La Migra”, yadda, yadda?” But the state is a collection of overlapping and interconnected interests that contain within themselves many conflicts and contradictions. Yes, Joe Arpaio might have an interest in immigration enforcement, or federal agents charged with immigration enforcement, but that doesn’t mean the state does not provide actual support for immigration in a myriad of circumstances.
@Jeremy — To the best of my knowledge, we're not.
Tim,
“There’s an authoritarian flavor in this discussion over what liberties should be restored and in what order, and what totalitarian laws should be left in place or enacted until the day comes when liberty can be planned in some orderly fashion by wise philosopher kings.”
That gets us to a question where I think most anarchists are seriously deficient: the matters of organization and strategy. I’ve gone on record fairly extensively as advocating secession by regions and localities, and further division and separation among conflicting groups, until everyone is satisfied. Secessionist movements would likely reflect local cultural norms and ideological currents. The Second Vermont Republic, for instance, has something of a left-libertarian flavor, though with more Green-communitarian influences than what most of you guys would probably care for. The Lakotah Republic is oriented towards American Indians. The Hawaiian independence movement is oriented towards native Hawaiians. The Texas secessionist movements have a predictably conservative flavor to them. There are other groups that advocated colonization of a particular region or locality, e.g. Free State Project, Christian Exodus, Liberty Districts, etc. For years, I have advocated that anarchists get involved with these regional independence movements, seek out leadership positions within them, and build alliances between them. At some point in the future, I want to develop a secession movement in my own state of Virginia, which currently has 95 counties and 39 cities. I’d advocate an independent Virginia federation that includes 134 sovereign political entities, with autonomous neighborhood governments for the larger cities on the “Mailer model” and town meeting governments for the rural counties and small towns. What laws would get repealed first would depend on the priorities of local communities. For instance, a rural community of church-going religious folks and cultural conservatives might wish to repeal gun laws or licensing requirements for hunting and fishing as a priority, but obviously wouldn’t worry so much about repealing Sunday closing laws. An ultra-liberal area probably wouldn’t be so worried about repealing gun laws as much as legalizing gay marriage or late term abortion. My priority for the Richmond area would be deregulation of housing markets, land use, small business, and self-employment, elimination of “public-private partnerships” (e.g. corporate welfare), abolishing eminent domain, and an array other policies that have severely hindered economic self-determination and self-sufficiency for the lower classes in the area. The other priority would be to repeal drug prohibition and related policies which are the fuel of the very serious crime problem in this city.
“Freedom is messy, and I advocate the immediate repeal of any unjust law because the infectious thing about liberty is that slippery slope (“if you repeal licensing for plumbing, why not doctors? etc.). Arguments against the repeal of unjust laws on pragmatic and utilitarian grounds have their own momentum, in the opposite direction, unfortunately.”
I would favor immediate repeal of professional and occupational licensing laws. The purpose of these laws is to create a monopoly for established interests within particular professions and occupations. Such laws increase consumer costs, stifle innovation and efficiency, and reduce employment and business opportunities for the disadvantaged. Even medical licensure is not about patient protection, but about limiting the number of physicians and thereby increasing the costs of health care for the consumer. But there are other laws where a more “pragmatic and utilitarian” approach might be necessary. At least some labor standards would be among these. Construction safety and fire prevention codes might be another. Maintenance of some public assistance programs until better alternatives are fully developed are another (see Carson and Sean Gabb on that one).
“I think Keith proves that. There is nothing in his argument that rules out the moral propriety of rounding millions of people born in the US on the same grounds. Which religions and beliefs will be tolerated?”
You don’t seem to be comprehending my argument here, so let me give you a concrete example. The Weimar Republic that existing in Germany during the interwar years was a liberal parliamentary democracy. However, by the early 1930s the two largest parties were totalitarian parties that aimed to overthrow the constitution itself, the Communists and the Nazis. Some legal theorists of the time, notably Carl Schmitt, advocated that the Weimar president exercise his emergency powers under the constitution and take whatever measures were necessary to prevent these parties from seizing power or fostering civil war. From the point of view of hindsight, that would have been the appropriate or at least the “least bad” approach. Here’s another illustration of my point: In 1992, there was an election in Algeria. An Islamic fundamentalist party campaigned on a program of abolishing elections and setting up a theocracy if they won-and they did win! So the military stepped in and nullified the election, which once again, would seem to be the “least bad” option given the circumstances.
It’s interesting you raise these points because I’m widely reviled among left-anarchists and left-libertarians for defending free speech and free association rights for white supremacists, neo-nazis, Holocaust deniers, etc. and for supporting the right of fundamentalists, racists, theocrats, nationalists, “homophobes”, social conservatives and others with illiberal values to form separatist communities within the context an anarchic meta-system. But there are limits to how far tolerance can go. Let’s say in a future anarchist federation in North American an insurgency of Nazis, Maoists, or fundamentalists grows to the point where it threatens the overthrow of the anarchic federation or agglomeration itself. It would be suicide to simply let that happen. Better to take whatever preventive means are necessary out of recognition of the friend/foe distinction and the tragedy of existence, while exercising the “least bad option.” Should an alliance of anarchist communities tolerate an insurgency by a group like the Khmer Rouge?
“The “right to exclude” is intelligible in relation to private property rights (and I don’t mean those fictitious rights claimed by state-sponsored corporate bodies). I don’t know what is meant by the “right” of New York to exclude, although we might know the crushing impact and intended beneficiaries of this kind of policy.”
This gets us back to the question of ownership of public resources and accommodations that I raised in my earlier response to Darian Worden. Who has sovereignty over public streets, lands, waterways, seaports, airways and airports, coasts, borderlands, etc.? Immigration is not possible without use of these resources. In an anarchy, these resources will either be private property whose owners exclude whomever they wish, or they will be “stateless common property” governed by common law or customary standards of right of use or access. http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=362
Either way, there’s no basis in any of this for the “right” of say, tens of millions of Chinese or European or Latin American immigrants, to make use of this property irrespective of the wishes of the indigenous, native born, or historically evolved communities of citizens of North America. With regards to New York, utilizing the “Mailer model” of neighborhood decentralization I suggested earlier, the proprietors of the common areas of particular communities would set their own standards for immigration or entry. For instance, Manhattan or the Lower East Side might be more accepting of immigrants from Israel, but not from Saudi Arabia while Harlem might be more accepting of immigrants from Ghana but not Russia. Or there might be a pact of all the neighborhoods for a uniform immigration policy. The end result would probably be something like the Swiss system.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1229878/posts
Keith,
First of all, I want to say how disappointed I am in C4SS for censoring comments on their blog.
I appreciate your response and believe you’ve raised excellent points. The idea that immigration policy is another aspect of genuine community self-governance that the state has usurped and, to some degree, must be worked with at least in the short run makes sense. However, I don’t think it applies, at least not in the same way as it does to economics.
In the realm of the economy, you and I would likely agree on the general outcome we’d expect any transition should achieve. We would also only consent to measures, state-driven or voluntary, that we felt would further these goals. After all, Carson’s point is not that then a totalitarian state bent on decentralization should centrally plan the move to subsidiarity, but that just enough state action be tolerated to introduce balance into a system slowly disintegrated and reconstituted. (I’m not really convinced such state action would be needed, but I’m open to the possibility.)
We don’t have the luxury of sharing goals on the matter of immigration. If you have a specific vision of what a just state of immigration affairs would be, it’s logical for you to advocate a variety of means to achieving this goal. But if I don’t share the goal, I’m not going to feel compelled to agree with the means. In this case, because I do not believe the anti-immigration reactionaries are accurately representing the interests of their communities, I would never be in favor of the state prosecuting their interests in any way, let alone in the way something like, say, AZ SB 1070 allows.
And frankly, even if I did agree with the goal, as an anarchist I would be as skeptical of something like SB 1070. In other words, if this were the economic realm and the economic equivalent of SB 1070 were proposed as a way to get back to a more mutualist economy, I can’t imagine it being acceptable. Even if we agree state action to ameliorate statist legacy is sometimes justified, it’s never *automatically* justified and certainly not beyond reproach. It should not make matters worse – immigration, however it is prosecuted, should not undermine other areas of society.
Just because I get a tax refund from the IRS – nominal “support”, if you will – doesn’t change my status, or any taxpayer’s status, or any resident’s status as fundamentally oppressed by the state to some degree that libertarians all agree is important. On a basic level, immigrants’ fugitive or suspect status renders them oppressed even if, say, the state cut them all $100k checks for the trouble – does that change the fundamental justice of the matter? Surely you don’t think that food stamps make up for the paranoia of being perpetually suspect.
Conservatives do often argue that the state subsidizes immigration in many ways, and surely they’re right about some of them, but until the state is hunting white people looking to kidnap, detain, expel, or kill them, I have a hard time seeing that support as materially relevant to the matter at hand. No matter how much money the state is spending to “help” immigrants, it is spending lots of money to hurt them.
It was ad hominem. I don’t have a high opinion of people who participate in the anti-immigration movement. Do you have some examples of participants who are worthy of respect?
You can acknowledge a problem with immigration policy without agreeing with the draconian measures many of the militant anti-immigration know nothings employ. I acknowledge the problem; I just don’t think allying with the state is the proper solution – at least, I haven’t seen any legislative or law enforcement solutions that show anarchist promise.
But people *have* started workers’ coops, family farms, unions, etc. Perhaps the incidence of such institutions is not as high as either of us would like, but people have attempted to realize their positive vision in the real world we occupy. Are there examples of anti-immigration organization you would regard as equally positive and prefigurative, even if they are not as common as you’d like?
One of the reasons I’m so hard on these anti-immigration reactionaries is that, unlike the anarchist movement, they’re not imaginative. They don’t seem to really have a vision whose achievement will improve native born people’s lives. They only have nostalgia for a return to an earlier time, which is fine on its own until it implies returning minorities to their earlier second-class political status. Where is the revolutionary potential or anti-authoritarian impulse here that you find so appealing? Isn’t the narrative of locals against the state more compelling than the narrative of locals against other, even less powerful people?
The problem I’m having, and I think you’re having too, Keith, is that on the one hand, we want to be realists about the situation. Both of us agree that exclusion and voluntary segregation will happen in an anarchy. On the other hand, we have competing visions of one aspect of the voluntary society we want to see emerge. We have to reconcile our personal, subjective value judgments with an attempt at a frank and objective assessment of the political situation. As we do so, I suggest we be up front about which aspects of our arguments we think are non-negotiable and which we’re wiling to compromise on.
Here’s where I stand: I’m perfectly fine with a nativist movement as long as it does not employ violence to secure its vision, including collusion with the state (I also think such a peaceful movement wouldn’t have much traction). The valid concerns about immigration would be better addressed by working towards better communication and understanding in the community than by turning a giant class of humans into automatic fugitives. On the matter of immigration, I don’t see any role for state intervention that moves things forward even if I agreed with the goals of the anti-immigration reactionaries. If you have specific suggestions I’d love to hear them, but so far it seems like Carson-style ameliorating interventions are as abstract as the claimed anti-authoritarian nature of this nativist movement from all the evidence I can gather. I’m willing to be corrected, though!
Jeremy,
“If you have a specific vision of what a just state of immigration affairs would be, it’s logical for you to advocate a variety of means to achieving this goal.”
My skepticism of abstract notions of “justice” aside, I don’t think there is a “just state of immigration affairs” on even a practical or pragmatic level. Immigration is one of those issues like abortion, the environment, or children’s rights where extreme positions lead to insane conclusions. Some pro-lifers would prohibit contraception or non-reproductive sex, and some pro-choicers would permit infanticide. Some anti-environmentalists would defend the right to pollute all you want, while others think birds and fish ought to have to same legal standing as humans. Some pro-immigrationists would see no problems with a hundred million immigrants appearing overnight and some anti-immigrationists would have summary executions of illegal immigrants. Drawing the line between competing interests and values in such situations automatically implies the need for pragmatic consideration of various viewpoints that ultimately involves a certain amount of arbitrariness. Notice that I have never specifically stated in the context of this debate what particular sort of immigration rules I would prefer for a community in which I was a participating citizen. I have only discussed the issue of the kinds of institutional arrangements in which immigration occurs and in which immigration policy is formulated, and the myopia of carte blanche “open borders” advocates.
“I do not believe the anti-immigration reactionaries are accurately representing the interests of their communities,”
Perhaps not, but I suspect they’re closer to it than “open borders” proponents.
“, I would never be in favor of the state prosecuting their interests in any way, let alone in the way something like, say, AZ SB 1070 allows.
And frankly, even if I did agree with the goal, as an anarchist I would be as skeptical of something like SB 1070.”
As I said in my reply to Rita, notice that I have never taken a position on AZ SB 1070 other than to defend Arizona’s sovereignty on wider decentralist grounds. Perhaps the proponents of AZ SB 1070 are totally screwed sideways. That’s the Arizonans problem, not mine.
“Just because I get a tax refund from the IRS – nominal “support”, if you will – doesn’t change my status, or any taxpayer’s status, or any resident’s status as fundamentally oppressed by the state to some degree that libertarians all agree is important.”
I don’t think that’s an appropriate analogy. Taxation is a form of expropriation imposed on the wider society by a class of parasites, i.e. the state. Illegal immigrants are uninvited guests on other people’s domain.
“On a basic level, immigrants’ fugitive or suspect status renders them oppressed even if, say, the state cut them all $100k checks for the trouble – does that change the fundamental justice of the matter?”
But legal immigrants are not fugitives. As for illegal immigrants, while I don’t really think there’s anything inherently sacred about law, I disagree that illegals are “oppressed fugitives” any more than some vagrant pissing on your backyard is an “oppressed fugitive.” As for giving illegals a six-figure check as “compensation,” I imagine if you did that there would probably be hundreds of millions if not billions of folks from all over the world going out of their way to be an oppressed fugitive illegal immigrant into the United States.
“Surely you don’t think that food stamps make up for the paranoia of being perpetually suspect.”
Apparently, the benefits of illegal immigration do indeed “make up for the paranoia of being perpetually suspect” given the rather large numbers of people who accept this trade-off.
“but until the state is hunting white people looking to kidnap, detain, expel, or kill them, I have a hard time seeing that support as materially relevant to the matter at hand. No matter how much money the state is spending to “help” immigrants, it is spending lots of money to hurt them.”
I disagree that immigration is a race issue per se. I have written before that mass immigration by Europeans or white Russians would be just as problematic on many levels as mass immigration by brown people. Some examples: the Virginia Beach area on the Atlantic coast has a huge unemployment rate. Yet the tourism and hospitality industries there import temporary guest workers from Russia because they can pay them less because the cost of living in Russia is lower when they return. They come over, work for a while, collect money, and go home and live high on the hog. In Western Europe, there is a big issue with immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia being used in the same way. Also, it’s not just white North Americans who are negatively impacted by immigration. It’s even more harmful to blacks and other minorities, particularly the poorest ones.
“I don’t have a high opinion of people who participate in the anti-immigration movement. Do you have some examples of participants who are worthy of respect?”
I would have a high opinion of some, not others. It depends on the individual. To name a few public figures, I’d say Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, and Thomas Fleming are all very much worthy of respect.
“You can acknowledge a problem with immigration policy without agreeing with the draconian measures many of the militant anti-immigration know nothings employ.”
Certainly, but that has nothing to do with whether or not carte blanche open borders should accepted, or how the matter of immigration should/would actually be handled in an anarchy.
“Are there examples of anti-immigration organization you would regard as equally positive and prefigurative, even if they are not as common as you’d like?”
Sure. There are plenty of activist groups and information groups like Center for Immigration Studies, Youth for Western Civilization, and Federation for American Immigration Reform.
“They don’t seem to really have a vision whose achievement will improve native born people’s lives. They only have nostalgia for a return to an earlier time, which is fine on its own until it implies returning minorities to their earlier second-class political status.”
Suffice to say I think that’s painting with an overly broad brush. It appears to me you are subscribing to overly generalized stereotypes of immigration critics.
“Where is the revolutionary potential or anti-authoritarian impulse here that you find so appealing?”
It doesn’t really have anything to do with any of that. It’s more a question of dealing with a serious problem that’s actually at hand similar to, say, the effects of a natural disaster or a serious crime problem.
“Isn’t the narrative of locals against the state more compelling than the narrative of locals against other, even less powerful people?”
Sometimes, but not always. For instance, there’s the case of locals against a local crime wave perpetrated by other locals.
“Here’s where I stand: I’m perfectly fine with a nativist movement as long as it does not employ violence to secure its vision, including collusion with the state (I also think such a peaceful movement wouldn’t have much traction).”
I generally have a favorable view of the idea of citizen militias formed to safeguard borders against unauthorized entry. You might consider that to be “violence” but I consider it to be no different than security guards at the shopping mall or university campus. I’m against anti-immigration terrorist groups like the Klan and Nazis, of course. But I think that’s a separate matter. As for any public/governmental/state action, I’d favor decentralization of control over immigration of the kind I’ve already discussed. As to what kind of immigration policy I’d favor for my own community, I’m basically a moderate on the question. No open borders, an end to state support for immigration, but no draconian enforcement methods, either. A generally nativist approach, with generous exceptions in some instances. I’ve already outlined some ideas on that in my LRC piece from a few years ago.
[...] Liberty For All Means Immigrants Too [...]
Hi Darian,
Your great article got a strong & predictable reaction from Glenn Beck's fans:
http://www.meetup.com/WeSurroundThemGathering/mes…
I appreciate that, so I just want to be clear myself: where we're having the disagreement is not really concerning the abstract notion of anarchist immigration policy – I think we'd both agree on the basics of subsidiarity and local control there, even if other anarchists in this conversation don't – but rather concerning our sympathies for opposing sides of a current debate chock full of statist context and strong feelings. Let's keep in mind that neither of us are coming at this without baggage.
Do I detect an abstract notion of justice lacing that statement? It's fine – I have my opinion, too. And so this is what I mean: we're both bringing biases about the particular situation in the current messy context into our theoretical discussion of anarchist immigration issues, and my only concern is to acknowledge the subjectivities so that we don't belabor them needlessly.
Well, this would be where race intrudes on the conversation. Legal immigrants, just like African Americans doing nothing wrong, are often suspect in a society that elevates law enforcement to the level that many of the anti-immigration crowd desire. At that point, it has nothing to do with the larger policies per se and everything to do with an "open season" attitude taken by the community. I don't see how you can reconcile an anti-authoritarian agenda with the kind of authoritarianism the anti-immigration movement welcomes / demands, setting aside the justice of it for a moment.
That's really my issue here. It has very little to do with immigration per se and much more to do with the response to it. As far as immigration in the abstract, we are very close to each other – but favoring a response so dependent on police power, so reinforcing of the old constructs of statist law and statist boundaries, so unfair to people who are just trying to scratch out a living on the edges of official sanction – this is where not only my abstract notions of justice, but also everything you and I have discussed about pan-secessionist strategy, can't help but creep in.
I probably am letting stereotypes of anti-immigration activists cloud my conception of the movement as a whole, but I have a hard time fighting that impression when they seem so eager to promote that conservative, white-bread, wholesome, "let God sort 'em out" attitude through their various organs. These are not people who would welcome the decomposition of immigration law enforcement to localities; these are mostly people who want to return to an earlier centralized statist model over a present centralized statist model.
I would be much more sympathetic if they themselves were treating this as an existential threat justifying the formation of a militia and acted accordingly. But instead they seem to only want to augment the authority of the statist border patrol and play a careful kabuki theater in that comfortable niche. A community militia responding to an existential threat would not, I'd argue, ask for permission or wait around to coordinate with distant authorities.
I don't mean to nitpick the Minutemen on anarchist fine points as we'd both agree they're not anarchist whatsoever. I only wish to show why I think the Minutemen are more properly expressions of statist interest than genuine citizen defense. Their ranks are full of conservatives who have no interest in secession, revolution, or wider changes in statist policy that would ameliorate the situation (such as reforming economic policy that has caused the influx) but only in addressing the problem in its most obvious, stereotypical form.
A thoughtful anti-immigration movement could find points of economic solidarity with immigrants, in fact, and work within (or without) the statist constructs to, say, get rid of NAFTA or end the drug war. Now THAT would be genuine bottom-up resistance to centralized tyranny. It is the particular attitude they have taken to the situation, not their opposition to immigration per se, that I again stress is the issue here for me. Yes, there is a statist context in which these actors move, but how they choose to position themselves in that context says a lot about what kind of society they're aiming for.
Could you link to that article Yeoman tried to post?
"Let’s keep in mind that neither of us are coming at this without baggage."
Fair enough.
"Do I detect an abstract notion of justice lacing that statement? "
No, because both legal conceptions of property rights and trespassing, along with political conceptions of nationhood and sovereignty, are matters of custom and convention, not something comparable to Plato's Forms or metaphysical notions of justice of the kind found in Aristotelian, Christian, and Idealist notions of ethics. To use a much-abused leftist concept, these things are "socially constructed" although I suppose we could make the case that the "law of territory" is also a socio-biological concept.
"I don’t see how you can reconcile an anti-authoritarian agenda with the kind of authoritarianism the anti-immigration movement welcomes / demands, setting aside the justice of it for a moment."
This statement represents a core objection that I have to your counter-arguments. Much of your argumentation seems to me to amount to: "The anti-immigration movement sucks, and has a lot of shitty people in it with authoritarian ideas." Maybe, but what I'm more interested in is pointing out what I regard as the overly myopic, ideological extreme and rigid, and ultimately self-defeating sentiments of those who champion "open borders" as a matter of principle and the problem this presents for anarchist political theory. I don't really see anyone on this thread or in other threads where I've discussed this with libertarian-leaning leftists trying to seriously address the questions I raise. Instead, it's more a matter of: "Anti-immigration people are racist, cops are mean to immigrants, anti-immigration activists have objectionable political affiliations, etc."
"A thoughtful anti-immigration movement could find points of economic solidarity with immigrants, in fact, and work within (or without) the statist constructs to, say, get rid of NAFTA or end the drug war. Now THAT would be genuine bottom-up resistance to centralized tyranny."
I have specifically suggested such things in the past. For instance, I would be very sympathetic to a mass walk out or general strike against fast food chains, superstores, or agribusiness plantations, even though these places employ plenty of legal or illegal immigrants.
"Could you link to that article Yeoman tried to post?"
He just tried to post some comments, not an article, to my knowledge.
I think "open borders fundamentalism" is anarchically problematic, too. If you're unwilling to defend the on-the-ground anti-immigration efforts, then the debate we've been sort of having really is moot. As I said before, my problem is not so much with restricting immigration per se as with the parties advocating for the restrictions.
Excellent analysis. "Widespread cooperation among immigrant and native freedom-lovers will make our would-be masters tremble at the sound of advancing liberty." So true.
[...] Liberty For All Means Immigrants Too [...]