A Question for Immigration Restrictionists
The current refugee surge into Europe has caused a lot of my friends who are immigration restrictionists to say this proves that I am naive.
During the Cold War, we (including most Conservatives) considered it immoral that Communist countries would not let their people leave (Berlin Wall, etc.). Now, however, it is argued by many of these same folks that it is imperative that the Western democracies build walls to keep people out.
So here is a question -- not of practical consequences, but of pure morality. Consider this picture of people being prevented from crossing the border.
Explain to me why this scene is immoral if the wall and police forces were put there by the country at the right (the leaving country) but suddenly moral if the same wall with the same police force were put there by the country on the left (the receiving country). Don't they have exactly the same effect? Same wall -- How are they different?
My point is that the private property argument is communist, which clearly nobody ascribes to overtly. Don't use a property analogy if you are uncomfortable with the implication that you think the government owns all the property.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 is not meaningful today since the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. It said that the trans-Atlantic slave trade could continue until at least 1808, unless states banned it first, but the Congress could tax it. Many states banned it, some states un-banned it (most importantly South Carolina) and it 1808 it was banned. This was a negotiated political compromise dealing only with the slave trade, and the inexact language was an attempt to avoid using the word "slavery."
No Supreme Court decision I've ever heard of rests on your interpretation. In fact, the Supreme Court has said the opposite, that the Congress has the power to control naturalization and immigration, to the exclusion of state powers in that area.
You're making a distinction between entry and exit, but you aren't
providing any reason to think that other than the fact that you think
it. You don't get to claim "common sense" and prove anything. If you can't describe the difference, then you are merely appealing to an arbitrary expectation.
I think people are free to cross borders and I believe this right is durable against both the country you are leaving and the country you are entering. You haven't explained why you think the right is durable against the exited country but not against the entered country. You can't simply state "common sense" because that's akin to saying you have no reason.
If the country being entered can claim for itself the right of property owners to exclude people for no reason (even though there are actual property owners who might decide differently), and extend that claim to publicly accessible highways, then why can't the country being exited claim for itself the right to control the bodies and labor of the would-be emigrants?
Also, I'm not dissembling. Borders are made-up lines that have no moral authority. That's why it's wrong to force people to live on only one side of them - whether you are inside or outside that line.
Borders are arbitrary lines inherited from wars, imperialism and political negotiation, none of which imbue borders with moral force. How could they possibly carry moral weight?
Um, no, pragmatism as in practical expected utility. I clearly am not setting this up based upon my preference. I am setting up a decentralized system which allows families and communities to make decentralized decisions on sponsoring families of their choosing with no systemic regards to privilege by race, class or national origin. Personally my guess is neither you nor I will sponsor any immigrant families, though I would consider it.
How about you?
The burden of proof goes the other direction. Pretty much every government in the world asserts the right to exclude - that is, the right to have an immigration policy. The argument that they (a) don't have the right to do this, or (b) that the right to leave and the right to enter are exactly the same are assertions which require proof, and defy the common practice.
Let me restate the central issue.
It's fine to keep people out of your private property, and it's fine for neighbors standing outside your property to keep intruders off your property. The location of the enforcer is not the issue; the issue is permission to enter private property. It's wrong to lock people in a house while you are inside and it's wrong to lock people inside a house while you are outside. Again, the enforcer's location in immaterial.
So if it's okay to control somebody's movement across a border while standing inside the new country, then it's okay to control their movement while standing inside the old country.
Until you can differentiate between entry and exit with something beyond "common sense" I don't see any reason to treat the location of the enforcer as morally meaningful.
Appeal to tradition is a fallacy. Something does not become logical, ethical or non-hypocritical merely because it's common.
I'm asking you to explain why immigration and emigration are different, and why a country is not justified in banning emigration but is justified in banning immigration. You've explained only that you think they are, but haven't given any reason that it might be so.
And now we have the truth of it. You're arguing that borders are arbitrary and as such unenforcable.
For the sake of intellectual honesty, you should admit that this is an (ahem) minority position.
For comparison, I direct you to other arbitrary things which we all agree on:
deeds to property
currency
language
Why should the community have that power any more than it has the power to racially segregate or religiously segregate?
I think it should be devolved down to the individual level. If landlords want to rent to migrants, then the migrants can live in the rented housing.
I didn't say that borders are unenforceable. I said they had no moral weight. So sure, governments can have agreements with each other that jurisdiction and militaries will stay on opposite sides, to avoid conflict or war. But there's no moral reason that actual human rights should bow to borders.
Can you give me a reason, other than tradition, why individual ethical choices should bow to a border?
Agreeing to common things like currency and language is practical so you can interact with others, and deeds are system to simplify knowledge of property ownership. If they conflicted with ethical principles, then they'd be ethically invalid. For example, if the deeding system excluded the right of Catholics to own property and canceled their deeds, then it'd be ethically invalid.
The opposite, in fact. If you are going to use force against a person, you need to justify that. The default position is passivity, inaction. That's what open borders means: not doing anything. You want to do something that requires weapons, taxation, legislation, etc. in order to bring about.
What's "common" is irrelevant. Who cares what governments say they have a right to do? That's ultimately a circular argument, anyway. Governments have a right to do it because they do it and everyone else has to show why it's not okay? By that argument, everything the government bans is morally justified until the people can show they deserve to do something.
You're not really acknowledging that "pragmatism" is an incredibly flexible justification that could encompass anything - provided you find some reason to think your solution has any real world effect at all. So I don't see why a bigot couldn't say that mono-racial immigration is the most pragmatic, or that mono-religious immigration provides for the most stability.
I'm not saying you're a racist. I'm saying you've advanced a principle so devoid of content or restriction that in practical purposes it means that any limitation is justified. Most bigots don't think their own views are impractical.
You have a right to your property, but you have a much harder argument to make that an entire country "belongs" to anyone.
Protecting? These are refugees, same as East Berliners. Why does it matter whether their jailers are on one side of the border or the other? Peaceful people want to flee to safety.
Can anyone explain why the location of the border enforcer matters?
It's fine to keep people out of your private property, and it's fine for neighbors standing outside your property to keep intruders off your property. The location of the enforcer is not the issue; the issue is permission to enter private property. It's wrong to lock people in a house while you are inside and it's wrong to lock people inside a house while you are outside. Again, the enforcer's location is immaterial.
So if it's wrong to control somebody's movement across a border while standing inside the old country, then it's wrong to control their movement while standing inside the new country.
You're implicitly assuming that a government has the absolute right to prevent people from entering the country. Why can't the government also have the absolute right to prevent people from exiting the country? What ethical principle makes the two scenarios any different?
If your responses assumes that peaceful refugees are hostile invaders, then I'll take that as agreement that there is no ethical principle dividing the two scenarios.
Ok, so you agree that East Berlin had a right to stop people from fleeing to the West. I disagree, but I'll grant that your deference to authority in both situations is internally consistent.
It's not compelling to say something is different because they are different. Failing to provide a reason just makes the original challenge seem stronger.
Constructing a bad analogy is non-responsive. The terms of the analogy are 90% of the dispute. In the wolves analogy, the principle that makes it okay to excludes wolves is that they are dangerous. Well that doesn't apply here, because these are peaceful refugees, just like the fleeing East Berliners. So incorporating danger into the analogy means it doesn't prove anything for the issue at hand.
Same for any analogy implicitly placing the refugees in the role of home invaders, burglars, invading armies, or murderers. Yeah, if you assume the refugees are criminals or killers, then it's fine. But the question is why is it okay to exclude peaceful refugees, so any analogy that adds in crime or violence is non-responsive.
You're describing property rights retained by a condo association - delegated by contract. You are further saying the government owns similar property rights - by fiat, without consent or contract, in all US real property. The right to control how property is used and who may enter property are both property rights.
Scandinavians are some of the richest people in the world and are notorious for welfare. And whenever a country gets a lot of oil money, typically they spend it on lavish welfare - the Gulf states being the prime example. It's closer to the reverse, since most poor countries can't afford welfare and therefore don't have it.
Heterogeneity probably better explains lower welfare levels, since Brazil and the US are very diverse and have low levels of welfare. Which implies that people are basically just bigoted jerks about welfare. Unfortunate, but nevertheless implied by the data.
Currently the federal government restricts immigration. I am suggesting a manner for individuals and communities to get around this restriction. Thus mine is a liberalization upon the use of force and coercion. Unlike your "open the floodgate" idea, my idea has the benefit of being more practical politically. If it works (it may very well not) according to the goals and values of our citizenry, it can be expanded based upon consequential reasons. If it fails, it can be revised or thrown out.
In other words, mine is piecemeal improvement in the right direction. Or we can sit around and talk in absolutes based upon foundational principles which 95% of Americans and 99% of immigrants disagree with. Which is it?
I am simply a consequentialist. I greatly agree with you on many principles, but if principles are completely right and consequences are bad, I adjust my principles around the world, not vice versa.
I have read various libertarians describe two distinct types of libertarian -- the consequentialist type and the natural rights/principles type. I am pretty sure which type I am.
You're right about that. Let me try to elaborate a bit on how I see it, and how I presume most libertarians might look at it.
When I want to enter an area which is owned by another group of people, it is up to them to decide whether I can do so or not. They have every right to prevent me from coming, including but not limited to building fences to keep me out.
If one of them wishes to leave the group and its area, they have no right to stop him from doing so, so building a fence to keep him in is wrong.
It's more on the order of a condominium. You own your part, but the commons are owned by everyone.
This is law, everywhere. Did you not go to school?
You apparently don't have a grasp of common law.
There is a commons area, which we all own. And a private area, which you own. To get to your private area, you must cross our common area. This is basic, and virtually everywhere in the world has some similar model. Are you trying to be obtuse?
I don't think it's more practical to make it a balkanized policy, because that encourages the sense that the US is not itself an open borders federation. If San Francisco can let in anybody, and Tulsa lets in nobody, then there are no internal checkpoints to stop people from traveling one to the other. The immigration issue is leading to the dissolution of the Schengen zone in Europe precisely because the countries are following different migration policies and now erecting border controls that were supposed to be abolished. If we tell communities or states that they can exclude people while other communities include people, then I think we'll find some communities will erect internal border checkpoints that limit movement within the US. I'm sure Arpaio would immediately set up such a system for Maricopa.
Moreover, by allowing some communities to veto, and forbidding any immigration without an onerous sponsorship, you're actually increasing many barriers to migration. You're talking about a higher barrier to coming here, one that requires both money and connections, even in the communities that wanted to be open. And by limiting it to one per decade, you are further restricting it. Why couldn't a billionaire post bonds for dozens of families per month? There's no financial reason, this is just an operative cap.
So while you are presenting it as a liberalization, it sounds like severe restrictions nationwide paired with the right of some communities to attempt to exclude migration entirely. It sounds more like our alcohol laws - some counties and cities entirely ban the sale of alcohol, while most states just have onerous licensing, wholesaling and bonding requirements.
If you want a politically feasible mild liberalization of immigration, then you'd do better to just offer immediate visas to all foreigners who graduate at US colleges (Mitt Romney endorsed this in 2012), rather than coming up with a very unusual reform that challenges the very notion of free movement within the US. In general, if your idea has not been discussed by think tanks, pundits, and politicians in the recent past, then it's difficult to say it's politically very easy. They move slowly and operate by some sort of conventional wisdom, and ideas that nobody's really discussed are much less popular in DC.
Your right to property is really a bundle of many different rights to use, exploit, and dispose of property. The rights to invite or exclude guests onto your land are property rights. You are saying that the US owns part of this property right and may exclude guests from your property. Meaning the government is an owner of all property in the nation.
This is what property rights means. Did you not go to law school?
This assumes that the government owns the entire country, even though it does not. You are comparing travel along public highways (as refugees ask to do) to travel within private property (like a trespasser), which is not properly analogous.
What if the foreigners limited themselves to public highways and to private properties where the owner gave permission? That routes around your trespassing concern, unless you are saying that the government owns all property in a country (socialism) and therefore retains the right to exclude anyone it wants, over the wishes of the title-holder.
Why are you calling this a liberalization when you made clear your goal was to drastically reduce the volume of immigration and to protect existing cultural practices? You want way less legal immigration, which is not a liberalization of immigration.
Sure, if I knew that I would not have to pay for the immigrants use of everything the government provides (which is quite a lot, both in Sweden and the US) I would be much less skeptical of uncontrolled immigration.
However, when we discuss this matter we can't just ignore the government and the welfare state. In this world, as opposed to a libertarian utopia, each new immigrant that does not get a job means you and I have to pay more to support him.
That is what is happening in Sweden. The three cities with the highest percentage of immigrants (Malmö, Botkyrka and Södertälje) are also the cities that receives the most from the national tax redistribution system. Without funds coming from other parts of the country, these cities would be new Detroits. School results, crime rate, employment, welfare payments, however you choose to measure it, these cities are at the bottom of the list, although not quite at Detroit standards. Yet.
I must also take objection to how you describe refugee intentions. No, they do *not* settle for traveling along public highways. They are very aware of the benifits that are given to them in Sweden, Germany and Finland. That's why so many of them want to come to those countries, and not to Denmark, Turkey, Greece or Hungary, countries which are not so genereous to unemployed immigrants.
I don't see why your arguments against welfare don't apply to all people, not just immigrants. Why should I be forced to pay for any stranger to go unemployed, regardless of their birthplace or language or skin color?
I realize that Sweden is undergoing a bit of an identity crisis that's propelled the Sweden Democrats to unanticipated prominence, but I don't think that justifies keeping people out of a rich & safe country and forcing them to live in poor & unsafe countries. Sure, having poor people closer to your home means poverty is more visible. But is it any better for the poor people if they are far poorer and living in far away countries? Relocating poverty may make rich Westerners feel better by hiding poverty, but even if migrants receive no welfare, their lives are much better in Western countries than in their home countries.
My point is not that migrants travel BECAUSE they want to use the highways. My point is that it is not trespassing because public highways are for use by anybody and trespassing is not applicable. The trespassing analogy does not apply to traveling through property with permission, or traveling through roads that are accessible to the public without permission required. I agree the refugees are seeking more generous countries, in part because they seem more welcoming. But I suspect they would be willing to stay in any safe country that allowed them in. Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, etc. are pushing them out and with few resources left after years of civil war, we can hardly blame them for seeking out countries that will offer housing and stipends.
The problem of Detroit is that it's empty and nobody wants to go there, and the remaining residents are disproportionately poorer because the city is empty. Detroit wishes its problem was too many people wanted to live there (i.e. too many migrants), since their current problem is the opposite: they've lost over half their population in the last two generations. Good places to live have more people trying to enter than leave; comparatively worse places to live have more people trying to leave than enter. In that sense, immigration is good, because it means people want to live in a place. That's voting with your feet; Syrians and Eritreans are saying that Sweden is a welcoming and generous place.
If allowed to grow anywhere near a majority - which will happen in about 2 generations - they will take over their host countries. France, Sweden, and Belgium are on schedule to become Islamic Republics around the middle of this century.
It is an invasion. Letting them in makes no more sense than letting Huns or Mongols pour across your borders. It's just a slower process before they have taken everything.
The ruling class in America is providing free bread and circuses to placate the masses. The political patricians redistribute wealth in their grand scheme to increase the headcount. And when the head count grows through illegal immigration, the power of the political elite grows as well. The ruling class isn't impacted by the disruption caused by uninvited illegal immigrants. They live in gated communities and send their kids to private schools.
Immigration is a cowards way. Why would one flea the difficulties of his/her homeland rather than stay and fight for change? Improve the lot of fellow countrymen by working for change? Nah, better to pull up stakes and sneak into America. Let those suckers who stay behind fend for themselves. America has become the pressure release value of choice to tyrants throughout the world.
What you put a fence around demarks ownership. We (collectively) own our country, giving us a right to put a fence around it to protect it from "others". Putting a fence around people to prevent them from leaving demarks ownership of those people. There, I believe, lies the basic difference.
Ownership of property/territory is important because it allows us to conserve and exploit the resources of that property/territory, just as I conserve or exploit the resources of my farm. And because it IS my property, I have a right to defend it from those who would steal my resources or intrude upon my land by use of force. There is no such right to own and exploit a person in a free society.
I'm not saying I like the current US policies on immigration, but legitimacy of a country defending itself from immigrants entering by force or through illegal means is, in my opinion, self-evident. The solution, I think, is to make it easier for those who wish to enter and "pull their weight," to do so. The advantage of this is not only the economic gains of more workers, but also the focusing of resources at the borders to prevent entry of those who truly wish to do American's harm. That's the thing that few people talk about, and to my mind is the most important reason to fix our immigration policies.
Sorry, you may be right. My plan would lead to more immigration, in a better coordinated way, in the US. It may indeed lead to less Muslim immigration in Europe compared to doing nothing. I think allowing a massive wave of non-liberal people into a nation is beyond insane. It is borderline suicidal.
"Explain to me why this scene is immoral if the wall and police forces were put there by the country at the right (the leaving country) but suddenly moral if the same wall with the same police force were put there by the country on the left (the receiving country). Don't they have exactly the same effect? Same wall -- How are they different?"
It is immoral to lock someone into a place. It is not to lock someone out. For instance no one would think it controversial for me to lock people out of my house but it would be for me to lock people in and not let them out. Or, there are sometimes limits or qualifications for joining an organization but there are not for leaving one. It is not controversial to have limits to join but it would be to have limits to leave.
Bram, ignoring your intense paranoia about immigration generally, your argument only makes sense if 1) I believe these people are immigrating with an agenda to take over their host countries and 2) if I believe that people can live generations removed from their parents' and grandparents' home countries without assimilating at all. And not only that, but I'd need to accept that - several generations removed - they are sleeper invaders for countries they have possibly never even visited. Please.
Never in the history of the world has a large Muslim minority lived peaceably anywhere. What makes you think they want to assimilate in Europe or the U.S.? It is the height of naivete and requires actively filtering out facts - such as this:
Muslims March Through Streets of Denmark – Demanding a Caliphate
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/09/muslims-march-through-streets-of-denmark-demanding-a-caliphate-video/
That's the wrong question. A better question is what makes you think they won't assimilate?
You can always find examples of radical separatists of every immigrant group - and among our own people - but that doesn't necessarily demonstrate a pattern among what average people would do.
I think that if you're paranoid and determined to hate immigrants, especially a certain type of immigrant, you'll read into every piece of evidence that you can that serves your goal.
Not at all. Syrian "refugees" aren't really seeking safety, their purpose is to forcibly convert Europe to Sharia law. (This is why rich Muslim states outside the war zone refuse to accept any of them.) And the Europeans, who naively assume that pointing out that fact equals racism, are ripe for the plucking. The democratic countries there appear doomed. The bright side is that some countries in Europe, including Sweden, still have monarchs who could intervene to prevent the takeover after tomorrow's Muslim majority votes in Sharia law.
It's going to be tried in America, too. And there will be civil war.
Islam is exactly that agenda. And lest the descendants of migrants forget, Islam commands them all to visit Mecca, where they will get re-jihadized.
We don't know how all individuals will behave within a religion.
So your opinion is that 0% of the people fleeing civil war, violence, and religious zealotry are seeking safe shelter in countries known for peace, tolerance and prosperity?
Is blowing up their homes and burning their villages just cover to plant women and children into refugee sleeper cells?
On the one hand the government is trying to keep valuable property from escaping, on the other the government is trying to keep invading irregulars from getting in.
I happen to think it's wrong to force people who work to pay for those who don't work, but that's how the system will look for the foreseeable future in both the US and in Sweden. What I'm saying is that it is bad enough as it is, so there is no reason to worsen this problem by accepting
large numbers of unskilled immigrants.
No, it is not better for these people to stay out of Sweden, but that's not the issue here. What matters to me, and most swedish (as well as american) citizens, is what *we* want. And we don't want to live with a favela around the corner, which is the result of no welfare for the poor and unemployed.
The trespassing analogy *does* apply here, since they *don't* have permission. They come here by illegal means.
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan is *not* pushing them out, by the way. They just don't provide them with housing, social benefits, or jobs.
As for Detroit, if you think they want to accept millions of refugees from the arab world and Africa, by all means let them. I don't think they do, though. It should be clear to even the most stupid Detroit politician that the upper and
middle classes have left Detroit because they got tired of paying the benefits for the low-skilled and unemployed. This will not be remedied by an influx of even more low-skilled and unemployed people.
You can actually see this problem in action within the US. Californians who flee the high taxes and regulations of California settle in Nevada, Arizona and Texas.
Then they vote for those politicians who advocate higher taxes and more regulations in Nevada, Arizona and Texas.
There are millions already in Western Europe - most haven't assimilated a bit. Go look or ask anyone there honest enough not to repeat the PC lies.
http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/09/migration-as-conquest/
I don't privilege the opinions or rights of a tiny portion of the population over the rights of all other humans. I think that in terms of human rights, all people in the world have the same claim. And the right to purchase housing anywhere you want, and the right to secure a willing employer anywhere you want, are basic human rights. I gather you think there's something morally important about the accident of where your parents were born; I disagree.
Detroit the city didn't really offer a lot of benefits that people could avoid by fleeing to the suburbs or to California or Texas. So that argument doesn't work well here because they'd still be on the hook for US and Michigan taxes, even if they left Detroit. Most people left Detroit decades ago because of jobs or crime, not really benefits. Most US welfare is either federal or state-run, and only a minority of welfare programs are ever city-run. Even when cities have a big role, like in encouraging sign-ups for welfare, the costs are typically borne by states or the federal government.
Although it's true that people leave California, Massachusetts and New York and infect places like Nevada and New Hampshire with dumb policies, that's not an effect of international migration but of interstate migration.
It's true that immigrants tend to have less libertarian and more conservative, more authoritarian, more statist opinions on most issues. This effect is counter-balanced by the fact that non-naturalized immigrants can't vote, naturalized citizens and the children of immigrants have lower turnout rates (they vote less), they tend to have present bias (they mostly vote for existing policies and existing politicians), and they tend to have less influence over elites. So overall, immigrants' political influence is fairly limited and probably less important than the number of big-government Los Angelenos and New Yorkers moving to Phoenix or Keane.
I never hear the voting argument used to justify a ban on interstate migration. If voting for Democrats is sufficient evidence of poor compatibility with American ideals, shouldn't a majority of Americans be forcibly stripped of voting rights?
You do realize European countries don't encourage assimilation, right?
In Sweden, it's not a question of foreigners purchasing housing or securing a willing employer. Almost no refugee from the Middle east or Africa has the financial means to purchase a home in Sweden, not even in the shittiest areas. That means the government will supply housing for them -- at very high costs, since there is a severe shortage of houses and apartments in almost all swedish cities even without a thousand refugees arriving every day. This of course drives up the prices for various types of temporary accomodation.
And as I've pointed out before, there are very few jobs for low-skilled people in Sweden. With a population of ten million, we already have five hundred thousand unemployed living on benefits.
On planet libertarian, problems like these don't exist. But we live in the society we have, not the one we want, which means we can't allow all of the world's poor to come here and mostly live on benefits.
Blocking immigrants is easy if there is a political will. According to EU treatments, any nation can seal off its borders and have strict immigration controls if they deem it necessary. Of course, they still must let EU residents through, but they do not pose the problem we're discussing, do they?
Dismantling the welfare state though is not a winner with swedish voters. If you don't believe me, ask any swedish conservative politician who has tried that during the last 40 years.
If Detroit's problem is too few people, why don't they just recruit a couple of million syrians to come there?