Thanks.

I don’t disagree with you, but if lots of immigrants simply wanted to work here and go home, there would be less complaint from citizens (although those who do not understand economics will always oppose foreigners and foreign trade). It is true that without the welfare state, only those who were successful or truly loved America would want to stay. My point is that this is not the case. I don’t have a problem with libertarians arguing on principle (in principle I agree), but when it comes to policy, it fails totally. It is putting the cart before the horse. The libertarian party remains more like a think tank than a viable political alternative because it always makes the perfect the enemy of the good.

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

“Other people are doing the stealing while I tell them to stop.”

Yes, you probably do. Unfortunately, they don’t listen to you and continue as long as they are able to convince the population that it is necessary for social justice.

How comforting to claim the moral high ground and others are forced to pay the bill for realizing your ideals.

Libertarianism is a movement to reduce the coercive power of the state. To my knowledge, there is not a single country in the world where large scale multiethnicity hasn’t led to more coercion by the state. Affirmative actions, redistribution of wealth etc. in India, Europe, the USA, Malaysia and so on (see, Thomas Sowell: Affirmative action around the world: an empirical study – New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 2004)

Don’t you wonder why the rulers want more immigration?

There are several reasons but the main problem of any ruler is to control the population in order to prevent and reduce resistance against ever higher taxes. And the best strategy is known for thousands of years: Divide et impera!

In other words, rule by dividing the population. Formerly, alleged class differences served this purpose. Now, they are using ethnic differences.

“I am telling both groups, yours and theirs, to stop stealing.”

You are telling MY group? Obviously, tribialism comes natural to the human mind. I didn’t know that I belong to any group except to those people who are trying to understand reality. But it is good to know that you already have a ready-made classification available for me.

And I am curious to know what my and Hans Hoppe’s group is in your view because the latter wrote in “THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE AND RESTRICTED IMMIGRATION”:

“It is frequently maintained that free trade belongs to free immigration as protectionism does to restricted immigration…I will argue
that this thesis and its implicit claim are fundamentally mistaken. In particular, I will demonstrate that free trade and restricted
immigration are not only perfectly consistent but even mutually reinforcing policies. That is, it is not the advocates of free trade and restricted immigration who are wrong, but rather the proponents of free trade and free immigration.”

There is no obsession nor is it a matter of pragmatism. Freedom to migrate stems from the self-ownership principle and the freedom of movement. It is a matter of principle.

Reforms that are impossible to undo, like suffrage or immigration, should be very carefully considered.

Actually, it is the immigration policies that encourage people to stay – by making it more difficult to enter, they make it imperative NOT to leave! Most immigrants would rather prefer to come and leave as they please, working in the States but keeping their families (and their paychecks) in their countries. Since the FedGov makes it difficult for a person to do this, most workers are more encouraged to stay and try to bring their families, even at the risk of being caught.

So, the problem is perpetuated thanks (once again…) to government intervention.

“Great idea to allow everybody to immigrate into your bank account via the welfare state. Very noble, indeed.”

Why don’t you focus your energy on eliminating the welfare state rather than eliminating the freedom to move?

Perhaps then you would be setting a better example for our new neighbors.

“you also give the permission to withdraw from everybody else’s bank account without their consent.”

Liar. I never did any such thing. Other people are doing the stealing while I tell them to stop. I am telling both groups, yours and theirs, to stop stealing.

“Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.” Right?

“unless you own ALL the land defined as the United States, then you do not have the right to put a fence around it.”

Great idea to allow everybody to immigrate into your bank account via the welfare state. Very noble, indeed.

“Leave the rest of us alone, you pompous tyrants.”

Accidentely, you also give the permission to withdraw from everybody else’s bank account without their consent. Isn’t that what tyrants do?

Fine. According to you, there is no unowned land.

Well, unless you own ALL the land defined as the United States, then you do not have the right to put a fence around it.

You and all the protectionists can put fences around YOUR property and even refuse services to whomever you want. Leave the rest of us alone, you pompous tyrants.

“Do you really want your children educated by General Electric? or Nabisco providing your health care? The market will demand the cheapest possible solution with the greatest return on investment, which translates into cheap education and healthcare at high consumer cost.”

Reread what you wrote. The market (that’s YOU!) will demand the cheapest (for YOU!!) possible solution with the greatest return (read: efficiency) on investment.

I suppose this is the difference between liberals and conservatives (in the dictionary sense), like in Italy when everyone agreed that there should be univeral suffrage, but the conservatives worried that voters would think the treasury their pocketbook and destroy true Liberalism. Reforms that are impossible to undo, like suffrage or immigration, should be very carefully considered.

“unowned land”?

I assume you are talking about the US. Where is unowned land in the US available for immigration?

I shall tell my Chinese, Indian and African friends to make it public in their countries that a few hundred millions may immigrate to the US to obtain unowned land.

Are you going to pay your share of the expenses for the additional healthcare, housing and educational costs?

And what when the new majority – uninfluenced by utopian ideas – decides that they need your property? You say that has never happened before. Well, the 10,000 years old history of human civilizations is an endless stream of such struggles. Ask the native population of the Americas what they think about unowned land and free immigration.

“We need to return to the sound monetary policy of the gold standard and an America where education and assistance to the needy are in the hands of the private sector, not government bureaucrats.”

Do you really want your children educated by General Electric? or Nabisco providing your health care? The market will demand the cheapest possible solution with the greatest return on investment, which translates into cheap education and healthcare at high consumer cost.

Regarding the gold standard, you should read Friedman and Schwartz on how adhering to it prolonged and exacerbated the great depression. There’s nothing magical about the gold standard.

Loosely stated, the “rights” of a group are equivalent to the rights of the group’s members. (The group cannot exist or act independent of its members and thus has no independent rights, and at the same time the rights of its members are not inhibited by their membership in the group.)

However, it does not follow (a) that all land within the group’s “country” is owned by member of the group; or (b) that the majority members of the group have the right to regulate immigration into or out of the the land owned by the minority opposed to said immigration policies. Each member of the group has the right to limit access only to their own property, not to the property of other members of the group or to unowned land, regardless of whether that property or land falls within some arbitrary political boundary.

“Fences” around your house don’t enfringe on anybody’s property rights but in contrary protect your property. The same logic applies for the property owned by a group, e.g. the citizens of a nation.

On the other hand, an “expanded surveillance state, national ID cards, and other” coercive measures infringe upon your rights. Immigration is only used as justification for such measures.

The principle of libertarianism is freedom from aggression not freedom for aggressors. And individuals who enter the property of others (be it your home or your country) without the consent of the owners commit a violation of property rights. The situation doesn’t get better by the fact that the owners are forced at gunpoint by the IRS to also pay for the healthcare and education of the violators of your property rights and their families. That’s putting libertarian principles upside down.

“There is a global real estate bubble, evident in every industrialized nation except for Japan and Germany; … germany avoided a bubble by requiring high down payments (around 40%).

Fine. But the fact that immigration to Germany is not substantially lower compared to other industrialized countries with a housing bubble disproves the theory, doesn’t it.

And because these people are wholly dependent on the whims of the immigration bureaucrats, they are forced to put up with interminable delays, incredible rudeness, and outrageously arbitrary demands of the federal office slime. If anyone wants to taste what full-blown socialism feels like without leaving US, I’d advise him to marry a foreighner.

So we have housing that is way overpriced,
(thanks to abnormal low interest rates)
and workmanship that is subpar.