Coyote Blog

Immigration is illegal unless permitted. If you are not from a visa-free partner country, then getting here takes a visa. If you want to stay, even if you are English speaking and educated, then the process still requires approvals, permissions and licenses. If I told you a country allowed free speech, but you had to get a form signed and stamped in order to give a political speech and you had to wait three years before you could publish a book, would you still say it was free speech?

We have a system of regulated immigration, but immigration without a license is illegal. I think that crossing a border should need as much licensing as crossing the street, going to church, or waving to a friend.

Even legal immigration can take years and is incredibly opaque, with experienced lawyers in the area unable to predict outcomes in many cases. I think what you mean is that the US takes in a lot of immigrants in raw numbers, which is true. But the system is actually far more bureaucratic and random, and even very good candidates for naturalization can wait five or ten years to get anything from it.

Well, your problem with non-trespassing entrance onto your hypothetical person's land is this - how is he going to exit the land? Can't use the roads because they are owned by the government or the government has an exclusive easement and the government can certainly exclude illegal immigrants from its property, per your own arguments.

As to your ethical argument. If it is "not ethical to initiate force against people purely to serve...economic ends" then it is your position that it is unethical for anyone to use force to stop someone (or a group of people) from entering my home and taking everything in it. Good luck selling that to the public.

That's already happening. The Tea Party movement is more libertarians than conservatives.

Well, I don't admit it is contradictory. As you are well aware, the moral principle as you articulate it contains a not so well concealed trap and I reject your premise as overly reductionistic. It makes no distinction between invidious reasons for limiting migration and innocent ones. Under your theory, refugees, terrorists, persons afflicted with ebola, and simple job seekers all have the same moral standing to freely cross borders because it is a natural right of an individual and there is no societal interest in differentiating between them. (Non-interference to the max, yo!) I beg to differ.

If you want a moral principal articulated by me, it would be along the lines of this: The manifestation of the will of the people has a right to secure itself within the area of its cultural jurisdiction (i.e. within the boundary of where its laws and customs are enforceable) from external threats. It is a cumbersome and inexact way to describe it, but really it is merely the societal extension of the basic rights to self defense we afford an individual.

When worded in this manner, it is clear that there is a difference between securing yourself from a perceived external threat and forcibly preventing someone from leaving your jurisdiction for another one. now you may not agree with what is considered a potential threat, but that is an issue of policy, not morals.

I don't accept that some non-specific manifestation of a tribe's will creates any extra ethical powers or rights. I'd say that a group of people have the same right to self-defense that the constituent individuals have, but no extra.

An individual can ethically act to defend themselves from invasion by a terrorist, provided they follow conventions of evidence and due process, or from infection by quarantining a dangerously contagious individual (you don't have to passively submit to being infected with a deadly disease). An individual cannot act to stop two strangers from entering into a job contract or selling the property down the road. Aggregating multiple individuals together doesn't mean any one of them individually has a right to object.

I also take issue with the "cultural jurisdiction" presumption, given the incredibly broad and subjective definition of culture. Are Boston, Memphis and New Mexico all the same culture as Seattle? Is it not possible that Maine and New Brunswick have more culture in common with each other than they do with New Mexico? Or that Seattle is more similar to Vancouver than it is to Miami? I'd sooner accept a legalistic fiat definition of jurisdiction as "the area where a government, army, tribe or warlord exerts authority over the legitimate use of force and repels upstart or rival governments." Governments are arbitrary lines and have mostly very sharp borders, whereas cultures have vague and ever-shifting borders.

Well I will remember to have my lawyer ready when Boko Haram comes to town! But seriously though, how is quarantining someone inside a border any different than preventing them from entering the border in the first place?

Governments are really an emergent property of people choosing to associate together and cooperate towards common goals. That is why I say "manifestation of the will of the people" (an unwieldy phrase if there ever was one) They are an organic force that encapsulates the larger ethos that drives that community and the laws are the practical extension of that ethos. The extra power comes from the delegation of power in the form of charters and constitutions in our case. It is easy to see it as an alien an oppressive force when it is so often at variance with our own personal creed, but alas, that is the lot of the losertarian. I sympathize, I really do. I may disagree with you on this issue, but in many ways it frightens me just how both parties represent the looters and moochers in our modern age. (I anticipate the next argument to be that you personally signed no compact with, or to form the current gov't. To this I say you can always renounce your citizenship. Until that day you tell the good ole US to bugger off, you are implicitly accepting the terms of the original social compact)

As for cultural jurisdiction I would argue we are an amazingly homogeneous culture and that is why our country has persisted and prospered so well. True, there are subcultures present, but they do seem to share in a larger american ideal, at least currently. This is something where I have to say the dose makes the poison. Diversity is great and enriches us greatly; I am particularly fond of indian food, for instance. But recently there has been complaints about "cultural appropriation" from the ranks of the fervid multiculturalists. Of course the opposite of "cultural appropriation" is balkanization, which didn't work out so well for the balkans. If we ever do decide that the american idea encompasses too divergent philosophies, the best we can hope for is to end up like Czechoslovakia, at worst it can be another yugoslavia.

But fine, I will agree to the use of the legalistic definition instead of the cultural one. Doesn't significantly change the principle I stated.

I understand what you're saying, but NL7 is mainly trying to take a person's moral principle to its logical conclusion. If the principle doesn't carry through, then it's a bad principle that needs to be abandoned. He isn't saying that there's no middle ground on the immigration debate, just that the principles being used to justify immigration restrictions are not being applied consistently. What usually happens is a person reaches a conclusion on a given issue before truly evaluating the "why." Then that person works backward and creates a number of post-hoc justifications that do not hold up to any kind of rigorous scrutiny.

I appreciate that you're being thoughtful and that you're concerned about creating a sound principle.

The government doesn't exclude law breakers from roads, it arrests them.

You can form voluntary associations for defense and you can hire others to defend you. But your association or hired defenders have no more powers than you do on your own behalf.

Arresting people on public roads is a way to exclude them from the roads, no?

Anyway, I'm glad that I can form a voluntary association for the defense of my property and my neighbors property. Maybe we will invite more neighbors to join and even more neighbors. I think I will call my association the United States of America.

Arrest is distinct from exclusion. The government doesn't exercise a property owner's prerogative to exclude criminals from its property; the government exercises its law enforcement powers to arrest criminals anywhere in the jurisdiction of the US. You can get similar results via different powers.

Yeah, the idea of a defense association forming courts and merging into a country has been thoroughly discussed and dissected by libertarians anarchists. Nozick covered it in Anarchy, State & Utopia. You really telegraphed that argument early on, but I don't see how it affects your argument at all.

The idea of forming a defense association is fine. It can have courts, insurance, police, and an army - all fine. It becomes coercive when you require people in a geographically defined territory to join your association or force them to pay to support it. And defense doesn't justify arresting peaceful migrants who enter private property by invitation.

Women used to vote Republican because that was the party of women's suffrage.

Obviously voters are fickle creatures and tend not to stay attached to one party.

I predict more Asian and Hispanic conservatives. Look at the actual candidates for president of both parties. Which party looks more like you?

Also, Trump's message attracts black voters. Breaking into those voter reserves of the Democrats could be very bad for the Democrats.

Note: I don't like Trump.

The problem with "who looks like you" is that having black, Hispanic and Indian American candidates has not really shifted the needle or caused many voters to switch parties.

The two Hispanic GOP candidates do not poll particularly well with Hispanic Americans. Rubio does all right, but Cruz is less popular than Anglo Republicans. Probably the most popular Republican among Hispanic Americans is Jeb, who's New England WASP but fluent in Spanish. The highest-polling Republican insulted Jeb for speaking Spanish in public.

Jindal polls shockingly poorly among Indian Americans, which has been the source of some discussion. It may be his efforts to distance himself from Hinduism and immigration that have caused a backlash.

Even where the GOP is falling all over itself to support Israel, and Obama is arguably more openly alienated from the Israeli government than presidents have been in decades, we still see that most Jewish Democrats have remained Democrats.

It's a mistake to think that voters will move just because some candidates look like them. Black people were solid Democratic voters for generations, helping to elect scores of white candidates. The majority of Hispanic and Asian Americans tend to vote for Democrats, and overwhelmingly for Obama. It's not enough to find a few prominent nonwhite politicians and expect nonwhite Americans to convert to being Republican. That's not any more likely than Christian conservatives were going to defect en masse to the Democrats if an explicitly religious candidate like Lieberman or Edwards had been nominated in 2004.

Whereas, if the Republicans continue to reward harsh and belligerent rhetoric on immigration, then I think plenty of nonwhite, non-anglo Americans might feel alienated - even those who agree on limiting immigration can be turned off by the rhetoric and the signaling.

Coyote doesn't make the point. He paints it black and white - any restriction is immoral. He does not consider the welfare state as an issue, even though the existence of government benefits is the core of his argument for government licensing of gay marriage.

When a usually sensible blogger makes horrible logic errors and is utterly inconsistent, lots of comments should not be a surprise.

Morality is how one person treats another. I don't assume that because your brother has been kidnapped and forced to live in a cage that he was treated morally. If he wasn't, then the warden is violating your brother's rights. And if the warden physically stops you from peacefully interacting with your brother, or invades your home to capture your brother when he escapes prison, then the warden is violating your rights too.

But I see your point. If Hutu militants massacred Tutsis who may or may not have one day done business with you, do we say the militants violated your rights, or just the rights of the murdered Tutsis's?

Immigration, of course, is different since those relationships either already exist, or are prevented by means of believable threats of retaliation against both peaceful parties (e.g. if an American airline owner chooses to fly in a Lithuanian without a visa).

"their locust-like presence"

Dehumanize much?

"But surely anyone interested in morality wouldn't justify some immorality on the basis of the existence of other immorality. Two mistreatments do not cancel."

That is a completely fair statement. However, we do not get to live in the realm of pure moral theory and adjustments (some quite unpalatable) in order to deal with the situation as it is presented in reality are often made. It is difficult to argue with someone who doesn't think collective rights exist (or at the very least should always be subordinated to the right of the individual) when it is plain to see that reality has produced a system where strong collective rights do exist and must be accounted for. I note here too that the "collective right" I have invoked in many of my arguments is no different than the individual right. It is the right of self defense. I believe that a community has just as much moral right to defend its integrity and dignity as an individual does. That doesn't mean that I always agree with what is constituted a threat to the community, but we have a "manifestation of the will of the people" known as a representative republic that balances my beliefs and goals against 300 million others and finds a generally workable compromise.

One other thing, I usually find calls for 100% more consistency to be rather self serving. If a person looks deep within themselves they can usually find contradictions in their personal ethos. I note that even here in this thread you will find that exceptions can be made to individual rights if the cause is right. (passively accepting the disease ridden and terrorists into their midst, for instance. they just lamely seem to say that the community doesn't have the same right or interest as an individual in self protection) Another good one was the comment that was rather approving of using the courts as a shortcut to upholding rights vs. using the democratic legislative system. Talk about coercive of everyones rights unequally! For every gay marriage decision there is a kelo. For every Brown v Board there is a Wickard v Filburn.

But let us return to the original argument at hand, a fence to keep people out vs in. Do you think these two phrases are qualitatively equal in terms of individual liberty:

1. Go wherever you want, just not here
2. You can't go anywhere you want, you'll stay here

Wow. So if I don't take as my personal ethos the most absolute position on any particular individual rights issue I'm some amoral (immoral?) collectivist? Pardon me if I believe that individual rights, while expansive, have practical limitations. Your stance that either you believe in absolute rights or you are some oppressive collectivist carries a fiery passion of fanaticism worthy of the inquisition.

As I mentioned in a response to someone else, I don't believe governments are a wholly artificial creation, nor are borders. They are an emergent property that arises pretty much whenever a group of people gather as a community (onoz, there's that word again) for the attainment of common goals, whether it be commerce or protection. For whatever reason, human beings tend to prefer hierarchical order and that desire for order manifests itself in a number of different ways. Hence I say "manifestation of the will of the people", not in scare quotes because of its inherent falsity, but because that form that manifestation eventually takes is different based upon culture and history of the community that created It. You may not think your government represents you well, or legitimately even, but as long as you are a citizen, you are implicitly accepting that particular social contract. If you don't like it or don't want to be part of it, fine, renounce your citizenship.

This is not so say I agree with my gov't on a lot of things, because I don't. I think the entitlements should be privatized or eliminated; I think the various research arms of gov't should be privatized; I think all government subsidies should be abolished. I think nearly all forms of government licensing are crony scams and should be abolished. Civil forfeiture laws and eminent domain are flat out disgusting. I think Income taxes and property taxes are immoral and should be abolished I believe there are innumerable laws on the books that that are nothing more than social engineering devices like smoking and prostitution bans or the drug war that should be done away with, and yet here I am being called a collectivist. That is true only to the extent that I am not an Anarchocapitalist. My current views are fairly closely attuned to Minarchism.

My sympathies do lie towards more freedom of migration. If somebody wants a job or a better life here, fine. But I don't think that open borders is compatible with a welfare state, and I do think there is a non-zero societal interest in understanding who is coming into our borders even if you don't place restrictions on their movement otherwise. I have no moral qualm stopping busloads of ebola carriers at the border and take no issue with stopping violent criminals and known terrorists as well. i have no moral qualm distinguishing between categories of people and saying some are less of a threat than others. (Like your example of the pregnant woman or consultant, I too can pick examples sympathetic to my cause...)

What you deride as "some politician's decree" is really us, through the power of elections providing a roughly summed vector of the peoples will at a particular moment in time. Now if we were talking about living under idi amin or some other tin-horn dictator where the people truly have no choice, that becomes more of an argument

Is majority rule inherently moral? No, it is not. A whole lot of very immoral things have happened with majority approval. However, it is a probably the most pragmatic system for balancing 300 million different viewpoints so that we can (mostly) live with one another.

It is clear that we are operating from fundamentally different axioms here. Despite everything, I do respect the purity of your approach; I just severely question its practical value. I have no problem answering the question I posed to you in the last post: The second statement is far more damaging of individual rights. In a world where no open borders exist, those two situations are the ones that are generally operative. Given two choices which are imperfect, I choose the path that offers the most freedom for the most people as being the moral position. I suppose I can see why that sort of moral pragmatism brings no comfort, but that's what I've got for you, collectivist or no.

Only for traditionally limited purposes, though that's been recently refuted by idiotic SCotUS decisions.

}}}}}} And accepting the "fact" of their locust-like presence will be overwhelmed by the collapse of government that will follow from opening the borders to all and sundry...

}}} "their locust-like presence" Dehumanize much?

Use your brain, much, other than to supplant a vacuum from existing between your ears?

In the end, the result would be indistinguishable. I cite again the Tragedy of the Commons, which your lot is preposterously arguing applies to the entire nation -- it becomes a commons for any and all in the world.

You're not even libertarians -- libertarians understand the concept of private property, which necessarily can only exist when the group surrenders some powers to the State to assist them in protecting such. And which obviously is extended jointly to the people of a nation to the notion of "national property" property communally owned by the people of the nation, which some individual does not claim specific right to -- and which is in the interests of members of that nation to protect and defend from external takers.

Anything less an the result is anarchy, where, in its purest terms, might makes right. And no matter how well armed and powerful you are, there's some group out there willing and able to take what you have if you're alone and unwilling to apply a deadman switch to a nuclear trigger... which definitely would violate libertarian ethics, too.

}}} It's contradictory to believe that people have freedom of movement when they are fellow citizens but not when they are foreign citizens.

Geezus, you're a freaking moron. NOTHING you claim can be justified at all. It's nothing less than an absurdist position, and it's hard to believe you're doing anything except TROLLING.

I seriously expect you to demonstrate that you own no property of your own -- of any kind -- which you don't deny access to of others -- I mean, how can you argue for "freedom" if you deny others the freedom of using whatever they deem fit -- including "your things".

If so, exactly how are you posting on the internet? You own nothing at all -- including money (i.e., no internet cafes for you!!) -- so you can't possibly be doing anything except using a "stolen" library card (clearly, its owner had no right to it, correct?) to access public library computers for the purpose...

You are truly condescending for someone who isn't very bright.

Re-read your post. It's vapid. "Real world" is just an intellectual cop-out, an excuse to avoid having a real discussion about ethical frameworks. You don't want to think in extremes (as you see them, anyway) because you'd prefer to just jump to your already decided conclusion on immigration and then work backward until you find a good enough reason. That's truly pathetic.