We recently lived through one of the worst government overreaches in recent history: COVID lockdowns. Children were forbidden to play with their friends. Employees were forbidden to work. Families were forbidden to gather. But here is an interesting philosophical question: Whose rights were actually violated during lockdowns? Do I have an absolute right to go to a restaurant? Do I have a right to a job?
This was a very convincing case for laissez-faire immigration policy. Well written and good arguments against the closed border sympathizers in our camp. I have always been on the fence and teetering either direction on the immigration issue because i think both sides have good concerns...but you summed it up pretty well. I have always been pro immigration but always erred on the side of caution because of the potential negative economic impact it could have if we have mass immigration.
Hi Curt, I appreciate the time and effort that went into this article. I don't have the time to address everything here. Business generally loves open borders. They can exploit desperate labor and pass on the costs to the public. In 2020 when Trump killed the Supply Chain with Covid Lockdowns and spent trillions to battle Covid (a whole other story) and forestall a little bit of relatively healthy deflation, I knew that we would have inflation because of it. Yet, convincing anyone of how inflation works is difficult. Even with a mere 2 year difference between cause and effect, few people understand how we arrived at our current inflation situation. Most people will happily go to the voting booth to vote Democrat or Republican not realizing both Trump and Biden increased inflation. Immigration is a vastly more complex concept than inflation with vastly greater time frames between cause and effect. It will be hard to explain some of the consequences of immigration until after it has happened in a severe way. Even then it will difficult for many to grasp, just as inflation is not understood by most people now. As the world population grows and we become more unsustainable in terms of resources and stability, the true costs of short term gains of Business Owners through immigration will be felt as long term costs of the public. Libertarian Privatization, as I have seen it explained, would not make this problem go away. Maybe by the time we add a couple more billion people to the planet and have really started feeling the effects of immigration then my second book will be completed and I can try to explain what just happened LOL...
Again you fail to see it. Let’s hypothesize about a land owner that owns the entire border between two nations. Your open borders ideas mandate he allow people across his property without his franchise.
That still doesn't work. In that case, if a single person owned ALL the land along the border (a weird, almost impossible scenario), they still couldn't close the border. People can fly in airplanes. They can take boats.
What motivation would you have to buy all the land along the border? If you did own all the land along the border, would you let no one cross it, even if they each paid you $50? $100? The most this proves is that we should charge $50/person to cross the border. I'm okay with this compromise.
So should bakers be forced to make cakes they find distasteful? It’s the same concept. It’s not about how they get here it’s literally that people are being told they can’t stop people crossing their lands. How are you missing this violation in your own thoughts? Slow down and ponder these position. It will ease some cognitive dissonance for you.
I would never force a baker to make a cake they don't want to. I would never force you to allow an immigrant on your land. But you're saying, "I don't want to bake the cake, so neither can anyone else!" or "I don't want immigrants on my land, so no one else can have immigrants on their land." There's no violation of rights when you don't allow immigrants on your land. There is when you don't allow immigrants on someone else's land.
No, I am absolutely not saying that. You are saying you would not force someone to allow a person they did not desire upon their property, but state that it is a libertarian ideal to force open borders without understanding that it’s a collective situation and to do so denies several things including the concept of free association. You are so concerned with hiring whomever you desire that you are failing to see the issues facing ranchers and property owners along our border.
Maybe I can make it a very clear example.
Can you not see how difficult it is to stop trespassers that damage fences, poach livestock, and in turn loose livestock from the same damaged fences? What recourse does a land owner have under your open borders policy? None. They can call a federal initialism to inquire for non existent security, but they cannot defend their property themselves, and if they do they can be arrested by the initialism that fail to provide security.
Would you deny a free association of land owners to work together to provide for the common security of their property from trespass? Open borders requires that this is denied solely under the belief that people must be allowed to walk across land because they could also take a boat or a plane? Where is the logic in that belief?
Would you enact a double standard of open borders for Space X as its facility is along the gulf border? Or should people be free to walk their happy asses across a launch facility because you want to hire a nebulous immigrant laborer?
I don’t care who you hire, but don’t force everyone else to allow trespasses to suite the theoretical immigrant you would hire.
Thank you for the article. I wish more people understood this concept.
This was a very convincing case for laissez-faire immigration policy. Well written and good arguments against the closed border sympathizers in our camp. I have always been on the fence and teetering either direction on the immigration issue because i think both sides have good concerns...but you summed it up pretty well. I have always been pro immigration but always erred on the side of caution because of the potential negative economic impact it could have if we have mass immigration.
Very interesting read. I disagree with some of your points but you've got a new subscriber. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Hi Curt, I appreciate the time and effort that went into this article. I don't have the time to address everything here. Business generally loves open borders. They can exploit desperate labor and pass on the costs to the public. In 2020 when Trump killed the Supply Chain with Covid Lockdowns and spent trillions to battle Covid (a whole other story) and forestall a little bit of relatively healthy deflation, I knew that we would have inflation because of it. Yet, convincing anyone of how inflation works is difficult. Even with a mere 2 year difference between cause and effect, few people understand how we arrived at our current inflation situation. Most people will happily go to the voting booth to vote Democrat or Republican not realizing both Trump and Biden increased inflation. Immigration is a vastly more complex concept than inflation with vastly greater time frames between cause and effect. It will be hard to explain some of the consequences of immigration until after it has happened in a severe way. Even then it will difficult for many to grasp, just as inflation is not understood by most people now. As the world population grows and we become more unsustainable in terms of resources and stability, the true costs of short term gains of Business Owners through immigration will be felt as long term costs of the public. Libertarian Privatization, as I have seen it explained, would not make this problem go away. Maybe by the time we add a couple more billion people to the planet and have really started feeling the effects of immigration then my second book will be completed and I can try to explain what just happened LOL...
Again you fail to see it. Let’s hypothesize about a land owner that owns the entire border between two nations. Your open borders ideas mandate he allow people across his property without his franchise.
That still doesn't work. In that case, if a single person owned ALL the land along the border (a weird, almost impossible scenario), they still couldn't close the border. People can fly in airplanes. They can take boats.
What motivation would you have to buy all the land along the border? If you did own all the land along the border, would you let no one cross it, even if they each paid you $50? $100? The most this proves is that we should charge $50/person to cross the border. I'm okay with this compromise.
So should bakers be forced to make cakes they find distasteful? It’s the same concept. It’s not about how they get here it’s literally that people are being told they can’t stop people crossing their lands. How are you missing this violation in your own thoughts? Slow down and ponder these position. It will ease some cognitive dissonance for you.
I would never force a baker to make a cake they don't want to. I would never force you to allow an immigrant on your land. But you're saying, "I don't want to bake the cake, so neither can anyone else!" or "I don't want immigrants on my land, so no one else can have immigrants on their land." There's no violation of rights when you don't allow immigrants on your land. There is when you don't allow immigrants on someone else's land.
No, I am absolutely not saying that. You are saying you would not force someone to allow a person they did not desire upon their property, but state that it is a libertarian ideal to force open borders without understanding that it’s a collective situation and to do so denies several things including the concept of free association. You are so concerned with hiring whomever you desire that you are failing to see the issues facing ranchers and property owners along our border.
Maybe I can make it a very clear example.
Can you not see how difficult it is to stop trespassers that damage fences, poach livestock, and in turn loose livestock from the same damaged fences? What recourse does a land owner have under your open borders policy? None. They can call a federal initialism to inquire for non existent security, but they cannot defend their property themselves, and if they do they can be arrested by the initialism that fail to provide security.
Would you deny a free association of land owners to work together to provide for the common security of their property from trespass? Open borders requires that this is denied solely under the belief that people must be allowed to walk across land because they could also take a boat or a plane? Where is the logic in that belief?
Would you enact a double standard of open borders for Space X as its facility is along the gulf border? Or should people be free to walk their happy asses across a launch facility because you want to hire a nebulous immigrant laborer?
I don’t care who you hire, but don’t force everyone else to allow trespasses to suite the theoretical immigrant you would hire.
I agree that immigrants trespassing is a problem. I address that here: https://checkmatestate.substack.com/i/81054568/immigration-prohibition