8 posts tagged “multiculturalism”

At VDare.com, Mr. Brimelow makes a case that “Immigration is the Viagra of the State.” His article is based on a speech he recently gave at the Property and Freedom Society. Click here to read it.

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A Note on Multicultural Nations and Free-For-All Immigration

"Human beings," wrote Mr. Buchanan in his 2006 book State of Emergency, "are not blank slates. Nor can they be easily separated from the abiding attachments of the tribe, race, nation, culture, community whence they came."

It seems very naïve, if one was to ask me, when certain libertarians deny this or pretend that individual persons in actual fact are "blank slates."

When in 1991 the Soviet Union broke-up, it broke-up divided along these attachments. Thus suggesting, multiethnic and multicultural societies require force for them to be maintained.

This is what made Murray Rothbard re-think the issue. No "open borders" as such, it occurred to him, would be found in a libertarian private property society. Private property owners would, in distinct contrast with today, have full control over who could and could not immigrate or travel into and onto their roads, private neighborhoods and towns.

With that understanding, it seems fairly clear that a free-for-all of immigration would not exist. That can only be the outcome of the central government running public property and controlling private property owners' (and their voluntary associations') right to discriminate as they see fit.

(That is not to say that no immigration would take place. Obviously that would not be the case. Nonetheless, it seems lost on some that what the State brings is a free-for-all in replace of the wants and desires of different private property owners.)

Statistics today, if I remember correctly, show that as California's minority population is growing to a not-so-minority position, whites are leaving and moving to other states. This alone seems conclusive enough for one to say that much of today's mass immigration is not at all invited as they enter various neighborhoods and towns.

Methodological Individualism and Intermediate Institutions

Man is obviously not an island all alone to himself. This is a fact that is a given in libertarianism or "paleolibertarianism," properly understood. No man or men could live in that kind of state, unless their wish is starvation, death, and extinction.

For man to fulfill his natural instincts of preservation, contractual and covenant marriage comes about. As the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises reasoned, the division of labor for sex under capitalism brings about "traditional" marriage and fosters it.

Man wanting to enlarge his family's wealth, for that of his wife and children and their future, and not to live a minimum and brute life cannot happen without voluntary cooperation with other men under an economic division of labor. This cooperation under the division of labor represents the source of civil life. It brings a natural social order of free market activity and capitalism.

Building up material wealth also allows man time to fulfill his religious and spiritual needs. (State fiat requiring man to work from dawn to dust leaves little time for religion, family, or such things! In the same manner, involuntarily forcing both parents into the workforce lessens the family structure.) Man's "quest for community," too, is fulfilled in this cooperative, non-political atmosphere. Intermediate institutions, or social intermediate institutions, absent monopolistic statist power and dictates, fill the necessary need for social, cultural, and economic authority and "regulation." They provide a framework to a world of uncertainty and scarcity.

This brings us to the first article. In the Mises.org Daily Article “What We Mean by Individualism” by Adam Martin, the author explicates why supporting subsidiary institutions requires the understanding that the building blocks to all institutions is that they are always and by necessity composed of individuals. For intermediate institutions to be present, they cannot be divorced from the actions of individuals, nor could they possibly be formed without individuals.

This is why a methodologically individualist stance must be taken, both metaphysically and morally. Once this is grasped, then the idea that there is a battle between intermediate institutions, community and individuals (if the terms are properly defined), as Mr. Martin writes, is theoretical nonsense. To organize and form institutions is only natural to man. They make an atomistic individual with no attachments nonexistent. Because of this, attacks against libertarian individualism, by such gentlemen as Russell Kirk, are falsely premised.

This understanding also amplifies important insights from the great Robert Nisbet. The State is not just at war with the lone individual and his liberty and property. This is to miss the full picture, perhaps most interestingly the most important aspect of the full picture. The State is also at war with all societal institutions and associations that men----individuals----form. One individual is alone and weak. But institutions---be they a business enterprise, a church, or family---are not. This proper frame of reference allows us to understand how to strengthen these institutions and associations (and, at least in purely economic terms as it relates to some of these institutions, why they exist in our scarce world).

A Layered Society: Individual, Nuclear Family, Extended Family, Clan, Nation

Roland Watson's LRC article “State vs. Community” makes a conceptual framework to understand community and its relationship to separate, unique individuals by that of a layered onion.

At the very center of this onion there is the individual. It is what makes you, you and me, me. It expresses our individualism and the "something" that makes us truly human.

Family is the nearest layer to this center. It is nearest to us. It provides the nearest support for the individual. This natural attachment and its impact on our development, too, make us truly human. Without it, we would be gone. In this layer there is an internal authority vis-à-vis the individual. Most importantly to any society, it is the institution that supplies and supports the development of children into adults. Its role in this process is to provide love and guidance. It supplies, among other things, economic and emotional support, education, the teaching of moral and religious values, work ethics and guidance for children to learn individual responsibility. It is thus the most important layer to nourish the individual core, the center, of the onion.

To continue to apply Mr. Watson's framework, let us say that the extended family is the next layer. It adds another layer of support to the individual, and to the nuclear family. Another layer would be the local community, which is filled with neighboring family households, friends, church and church leaders, community leaders, businesses and business leaders, and so on. Moving even further we enter into the very outer layers which include that of the region or nation. Those outer layers can be defined by the bond of language, ethnicity, and a discernible culture.

Community vs. State

“Let’s Gut the Political Community” by P. Andrew Sandlin contends that during the past three hundred years the political community has reigned supreme; whereas before, to differing degrees, governing was more left to non-coercive forms of management and governorship, such as kinship and religion. Along with kinship and religion communities, today, if we got rid of the State, we could introduce the "economic community."

Mr. Sandlin writes:

When left unhindered [e.g., "strong families, churches, and businesses"], they tend to assume most of the legitimate responsibilities in human society: nurture, education, bread winning, communication, health, transportation, wealth creation, and so forth. Just remember: in principle, what these communities do, the state doesn’t get to do. And what the state does, these communities don’t get to do. Why should we want the family, church, business, and other non-political communities to assume these responsibilities? Because these other communities are voluntary and non-coercive. You can ... walk away from a family. You can walk away from a church. You can walk away from a job. But in today’s Western world, try walking away from the state. Because these communities are voluntary, and non-coercive, they also do a better job of fulfilling their responsibilities in human society than the state does.

He continues that "It is a strong, non-coercive institution that binds a society together." For this reason they are "bulwarks against tyranny." And, unlike some critics from the "paleoconservative" side, we "need more small, family businesses" just as much as "we need big businesses." "'Big Business,' like 'Big Family' and 'Big Church,' is a great check on 'Big Brother.'"

The very last thing to do, as a result, to strengthen social intermediate institutions, like that of family, is to replace them or lessen them for statism and the political circus. Combining them with politics will always be damned to failure.

Authority, Private Communities, Law, and Peace

Jonathan Liem writes in “The Voluntary Community”:

Every removal of subsidiarity from the regulation of the community, by the ever-expanding state, displaces the human being from that which grounded them in wholesome relationships. This loss of wholesome relationships has unleashed the atomistic-individualism of libertinism. Thus, the state is responsible for the degeneracy of today’s community. The state has neutered the role that the voluntary community plays in the natural authority that regulates human action, and replaced it with the unnatural authority of the omnipotent state, its political shenanigans and relativistic moral center based upon pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. The irony of the entire experience is that in working towards the virtuous community through the mechanism of the state, the conservatives have in actuality, ensured the supremacy of libertinism.

Now I am not certain if what I am about to say is "politically incorrect" or not. These days it is hard to tell. (It might be to the Reason crowd.) Authority and social structure is essential to any society, even one that is purely libertarian.

But authority and power are two different things. According to Brad Lowell Stone in his book on Robert Nisbet, here is how Nisbet saw these two terms:

Power, by contrast [to authority], is external and based on force. It entails an effort to exact obedience or compliance of others to the will of one or more person in a way not derived from the roles or statues of the aggregate. Thus, power tends to be monistic and indiscriminate, with uniform effects, whereas authority by its nature is pluralistic, with multiform effects. Power arises, Nisbet says, only when authority breaks down.

It does not take much to see that without authority society would parish. Mankind has an inegalitarian nature. All men, for instance, cannot be business owners. Some just do not have the ability. Under the free market, contra statism and its political hierarchy of the usage of power, it produces a hierarchy that awards excellence in servicing others. Something of which is mutually beneficial and reinforcing to all individuals, of all talents and intelligence levels, in a society. To get "on top," so to speak, one must serve his fellow man. Hence there exists in free firms hierarchical authority. There has to be. In the free market at large there is a general hierarchy.

Capitalism and the free market, more specifically, is all about an institutional setting. Once this is seen and understood it becomes clear that the atomistic individual and egalitarian individual is an absent and mythical individual. They do not exist in relation to any internal market institution in an atomistic sense or an egalitarian sense having equal authority vis-à-vis others. There is not the hint of democratic values. It may be heresy to say this, but focusing too much on pure individualism and nothing else is destructive. Something too many libertarians fall into.

Children, living with their parents and under their private property, could never develop into mature adults without good parental authority. Therefore in the same regards there is a hierarchy in family*. (Children cannot be said to be equal to their parents in authority!)

*[As Robert Nisbet wrote, today's "disorganization of the modern family," and the loss of much of its private authority, is the result from the "absorption of its functions ... chiefly (by) the state." And, as he said, the family is the most important molecule to society.]

In communities, large and small, there are leaders who are better at organizing functions and resolving disputes than others. Schools have teacher authority figures. In religion, there are also leaders and authority figures. There are thus layers of authority hierarchically structured. But these men, in a free market, do not have the ability to tax or coerce anyone. In addition, many of these authority figures are in constant competition with each other.

A look into private property also shows that such property has an "internal law." It is also something, by its very nature, inegalitarian. Its ownership is inegalitarian. Furthermore, private property does not form a vacuum, or a chaotic free-for-all of open access in terms of accessibility and/or rules of usage, like that of public property nor become detached from bourgeoisie moral and social values. It does not create a drone of detached zombie-like individuals walking about.

It is also important to understand that a free society, as I am describing, allows a harmony between different people, with different beliefs and values. Men do not need a uniform one-size-fits-all set of rules or dictates. They do not need it with purchasing goods and services on the market today. They would not need it if law were to be private. Allowing family households to associate with who they wish to associate with or apply to themselves this or that law (e.g., pure libertarian natural law, Catholic law, Jewish, a secular form of law, etc.) would remove conflict between people. There would no longer be conflict, for instance, between secular versus religion in State monopoly law (or on public property, for that matter).

The replacement of such a society is one where authority, and a unique "authority" development of power or coercive violence, is placed into the managerial, all centralized, State. In not abandoning State monopoly law for private, the result will just be the increasing diminishment of all societal institutions and private authority into central hands to be molded and deformed. It is the destruction of any and all community. By doing this, it is also sets into motion the atomized individual. To use a term from Brad Lowell Stone, even though the words are not exactly to my liking, a "communitarian traditionalist" has no place in a statist society.

For example, one crushing defeat to community, and private property rights in general, were State laws getting rid of covenants. They are a perfect illustration and example of a form of competitive and private law. For this reason it is understandable why the State would outlaw them. They are, at least indirectly, a form of competition to the State institution itself! It makes them, essentially, incompatible with statism and the managerial state.

This topic brings us to the last articles. Yet another strength to freedom is that it will eliminate any problems of forced integration and forced exclusion. See  “Community by Force” by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. They would disappear because all property would be privately owned. There would be no such thing as an immigration problem because all people would be invited into their communities. (Trespassing being against property norms.) At the same time, though, there would be the tendency to promote an all-inclusive complex division of labor to bring people together in the market place. Free trade between all would exist.

To understand where communities typically spring from and how the market's spontaneous order of movement would generally tend to work out, you can see  “Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Oh, Wait, Make That ‘Weakness’” by Steve Sailer.

One more mention worthy article would be Mr. Rockwell's “Capitalism and Culture.” It is a bit off-topic from this, but interesting nonetheless.

Quote:

In the postwar period, particularly since the sixties, the administrative state, most plainly in the United States, has come to define itself through a struggle against social pathology. In this struggle the distribution of entitlements has not been the sole or even major justification for extensive political control. More essential has been “fairness,” “caring,” openness,” and other ideals attached to behavioral policies. And these policies have moved in a particular direction: toward delegitimating established social and familial arrangements while normalizing unconventional and experimental human groupings. We are expected to take for granted, and view as beyond critical discussion, “universal nations,” “open communities,” “homosexual family units,” and “pluralistic cultures.” Note these reformulations are not simply the hobbyhorses of journalistic cliques or of isolated action committees. These things thrive because of government agencies, the judiciary, and public education. The represent what democracy as public administration holds up as the happy alternative to how things used to be. And if the state moves boldly to ban insensitivity, that may be necessary to avoid mass backsliding into life “before the Sixties.”

Such interventions by political authorities do not arouse widespread protest from American citizens. For all their complaints about “political correctness,” moderate conservatives, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and contributors to the National Association of Scholars’ periodical, Academic Questions, do not devote their primary attention to the government’s control of speech and behavior. The battle between supporters and opponents of political correctness is through to be taking place among warring cultural elites. Moderate conservatives see themselves as contending with New Class intellectuals, but they try not to express a negative attitude toward the American state. It is grievously wrong, according to Will, for conservatives to exhibit “blanket disdain for government and hence for the political vocation.” To the moderate Right, it seems better to expose what it views as corrosive cultural influences, particularly those associated with postmodernism, than to treat the state with unseemly suspicion.

[Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt, from introduction. Purchase book at Amazon. See description.]

After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State by the obviously brilliant and very well-schooled scholar Paul Edward Gottfried was a great treat to understand the transition between classical liberalism to modern day liberalism and the subsequent rise of the "Managerial State," and its "Therapeutic" management.

It is a book that is very much worth reading to comprehend the present order of society, government, and the roles of the State's intellectual bodyguards. As I mentioned in the past here at The Paleo Blog, to understand where we are today as a society, I have recommended reading The Present Age by Robert Nisbet, The Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan, and (if you only read one) Democracy - The God That Failed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Oh, there are several others out there, yes. Blowback by Chalmers Johnson for foreign policy is one. And there are tons of others. But those three are good starts. Now being someone who has, at least relatively speaking, been studying areas that relate to the world of politics for really only for a short period, I am sure as time progresses, no doubt I will add more books, but right now I believe that Dr. Gottfried's trilogy is a worthwhile addition. It is another piece of the puzzle.

The two follow-ups to this book are: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy and The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium.

It is packed with information, names, and both historical and more modern examples, but hopefully I can provide just a tiny few outlined insights from this book.

The Managerial Elite

A recent entry in The Paleo Blog described the "Managerial Revolution." This topic Gottfried expands on in his book. What controls, dictates, and guides major movements in society is the managerial elite. It is not so much special interest groups, representing the people at large, competing with each other working towards some comprise point. The movement from where the U.S. was, say, 60 years ago to today is not such a bumpy-ride. There is a one-way arrow, so to speak, that has guided the growth of statism and the deterioration of bourgeoisie or heartland values.

This has required the managerial state to destroy or weaken more constant or organic groups, which help provide a bulwark against further advance by statist interventions into society. This also explains why the managerial state encourages groups that are generally hostile to any bulwark bourgeoisie values or institutions. The state has an incentive to destroy the family, thus isolating the individual, and gaining control. It also follows that increased alternative lifestyles are also in the interest of the managerial state. By breaking up natural or organic authority it then has more power.

The managerial state also uses entitlements "to gain leverage over citizens." People, from the frame of reference of the managerial elite, must be made dependent on them. This is what the welfare state accomplishes. From this ideological manipulation and control becomes increasingly more possible.

Gottfried writes that "While public administrators ... claimed to be pursuing 'scientific' reorganization, their true goal was to combat bourgeois modernity, i.e., the political and moral culture that come out of the nineteenth-century Western world." (p xii) "[T]he intractability of such attitudes," he says, "was seen to reflect both the force of traditional religion and faulty child-rearing. Such cultural influences offered a challenge to liberal reformers, one that demanded the adoption of a vigorous social policy." (p 4)

Classical Liberalism

The first chapter of the book is called “In Search of a Liberal Essence.” Gottfried gives you a good schooling on the development of political thought. (A great deal of it I, myself, have been in the dark about.) One of which is how modern day liberalism has endeavored to attach itself as expressing the "true" evolved form of classical liberalism. (Our author gives us several examples in the book.) But such a task can only come through gross distortions. Liberalism has been "decontextualized," says Gottfried. Classical liberalism represented a defense of bourgeoisie culture and tradition. It had a belief in a free economy and a limited state.

Classical liberal bourgeoisie also saw themselves connected with cultural and ethnic identities. A problem with the left-liberal transformation of classical liberalism (and, by the way, this fits with some libertarians) is its twisting of classical liberalism's pro-bourgeois culture into their now hostile views of such social and cultural values and relationships. Classical liberals did not see the individual as detached from others and recognized naturally arriving authorities. The atomized individual that so many people today promote is nothing but a product of the democratic state and the welfare-warfare state.

(And it is in this regards, in my view, we can see a problem with some of the things promoted by some libertarians. Some libertarians, knowingly or unknowingly, very much see the individual as but an atomized and detached individual. This view will continuously plague libertarianism and libertarian thought. It almost makes me swear off the term "libertarian" to describe my views. In a free society, [voluntary/market] authority would be promoted back to families, churches, and other such social-cultural institutions, as well as other market-based institutional arrangements.)

I take it that left-liberals have tried to spin-off the more democratic-tendencies of classical liberalism. Although, the problem with this, as Gottfried shows, is that there was debate if democratic values would produce a classically liberal or stable society. Liberals of the day, if they supported "democratic" values, generally supported them only insofar as they were more aristocratic, layered, hierarchical and elitist.

However, there might be a little truth to the fact that modern day liberals have tried to attach themselves onto classical liberal ideas that supported more "democratic values." These old liberals came to the assumption or view that republican forms of government (i.e., more layered or aristocratic democracies) are an improvement over monrachical government, but this is fatally flawed. It became a deficiency of classical liberalism that might have helped transform it into the left-liberalism or "neo-liberalism" of today.

The left-liberal transformation also tried to fit itself with universalism. The universal principles of property rights were deformed into a existence of supposed universal democratic left-liberal values. And, of course, we know with such a shift there is no limit to what the State can control and do. There is no ending point.

"By now," writes Gottfried, "the interwar new liberalism once prevalent in the United States has split into rival sects, one side capturing the postwar conservative movement and renaming itself 'neoconservative' and the other, more egalitarian side becoming the left wing of the Democratic Party. Though the revenge of a semantic theft, this development underscores the difficulty of assigning essentialist definitions to a changing ideology. The liberal essence, it can be said, continues to elude." (p 29, emphasis mine)

Left-Liberalism's Universalism

Left-liberalism has adopted egalitarianism, atomistic individualism, and the promotion of instant gratification or hedonism. This is claimed to be universal and universally true. Hence, the leftist vision that a nation-state has no borders (or no identity) and the leftist universal missions to spread democratic values around the world.

The welfare state is a large part of this "promotion of instant gratification or hedonism."

As Gottfried writes:

Material redistribution, as a means of individual fulfillment, has become basic to our democratic age, while the cohesion of the nuclear family has grown weaker as liberalism has lost out to liberal democracy. (p 38)

This social engineering operation requires that there be overseers or "professional administrators."  (p 49)

Their ideology is "necessarily globalist," he says (p 74), because: {1} The view that their principles are universal. That it "transcends cultural specificity." {2} It seeks "validation of its own premise" on "what are called 'human rights and 'human dignity.'" These "can only be made appear such if all or most of humanity accepts the same ideology." {3} It "has attained power" "through its identification with America as a superpower."

They believe they have a global mandate to spread their vision on the world. For instance in 1994 with American troops in Haiti. A "legal adviser to the Clinton administration explained" that these troops were in Haiti out of the view of "the 'right to democracy'," which "came out of the established view of liberal democracy as a universal creed."

The role of managerial liberal elites, for example, had a profound effect on Woodrow Wilson and his interventionist foreign policy. Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life is an example. In fact, Croly first looked negatively at Wilson for being too "moderate," but Wilson, as Arthur S. Link documents, this soon changed with Wilson becoming increasingly more entangled with left ideology. An agenda pushed down on society via the managerial revolution.

The same goes for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He allied himself with managerial organized labor. This led to the creation of the National Labor Relations Act and a Board to give them power. During wartime the nationalization of industry was modeled after Mussolini, someone who FDR referred to "an admirable Italian gentlemen" and said "I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished." (By the way, Hitler, an admirer of such despots as Lincoln, had many kind words for FDR: "I have sympathy with President Roosevelt because he marches straight to his objective over Congress, over lobbies, over stubborn bureaucracies.")

It is today taboo to attack the underlying framework of left-liberalism (and neoconservatism). One of them is their egalitarian creeds. An example in the book that is used is how the left reacted to The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray.

The reaction was that the authors favored "Nazi eugenic policies." But this is false. Nowhere in the book does it advocate anything of the sort. All the book says is that intelligence is not entirely based on environmentalism. Social policies of leftism, then, will fail. Society will still, as Gottfried explains their book, "organize itself hierarchically and multiculturally, along lines of intelligence." (p 4)

All the attacks on this book were not intellectual, but instead ideological. Left-liberal Nathan Glazer, for example, conceded points, but said it is better to lie about such facts to the public than to tell the truth because it conflicts with liberal egalitarian ideology.

But as they reject to "inherited biological categories as race and gender," and embrace full environmentalism, the left does not reject when the government uses such categories. If it fits their purpose, it becomes acceptable.

On the other hand, it is not acceptable when those that oppose their ideology explore or talk about such topics. Once such topics are dived into, psychological intimidation is used (see next section).

Gottfried writes left-liberals

are so preoccupied with the role of prejudice in creating hostile environments that they perpetually deny the obvious, that stereotypes are rough generalizations about groups derived from long-term observation. Such generalizations are usually correct in describing group tendencies and in predicting certain collective actions, even if they do not adequately account for differences among individuals. (p 100)

The Therapeutic State

According to the left intellectual elites, those that do not subscribe to left-liberalism are mentally ill. This has given rise to the name-calling of opponents as "selfish," "racists," "homophobes," "sexists," "fascists," "Nazis," "extremists," and so on. How many times have you heard, for example, Pat Buchanan being called those things? I always find that funny, given that Mr. Buchanan is one of the most claimed, balanced, and jolly characters you see on the national stage.

Psychological intimidation is used to try to hush non-leftists. So-called pathologies, like insensitively, must be attacked. Think Larry Summers for a more recent example.

Traditional family values are looked at as "authoritarian" and "fascist." Something, these left-liberal bodyguards claim, that will lead or at least connected to Nazism or its ideology of authoritarianism. This, however, is unsupported. Those that are using statist top-down management is them----not the traditional family household. To fight off some kind of supposed authoritarianism that would develop, they see such methods as acceptable to use if they themselves are using them.

Likewise, any defense of a culture or civilization is attacked. They use, what Leo Strauss called, the "argumentum ad Hitlerum" to "prove" their point. That is, Hitler liked X, you like X, thus you "must" be a supporter of Hitler. [See chapter one of Shots Fired by Sam Francis.]

The rise of psychological conditioning is part of the three things that the Progressive Era brought, says Gottfried. The other two are: {1} Replacement of nationalist views with globalist. Localism is viewed as evil. Local government and local control, to them, should be replaced with all-out centralization of power and out of the hands of local community control. {2} Dropping previous hereditarian views for environmentalism as to see individuals as able to be socially engineered.

The psychological conditioning of the masses gives rise to what Thomas Szasz calls the "the therapeutic state." (p 79, emphasis mine)

Gottfried quotes Szasz as follows:

If people believe that health values justify coercion, but that moral and political do not, those who wish to coerce others will tend to enlarge the category of health values at the expense of moral values.

Those "health values," Gottfried says, "have also become socialized through a global managerial culture."

The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno suggests that opponents of democratic liberalism are mentally ill and need modification.

Here is an illustration of Adorno's analysis that made me -laugh out loud-, and shows the nonsense of this. A test case, "Mack," was linked by his "Anti-Semitism" to his view of disliking Roosevelt and bureaucrats in general.

Mack said "his only reservation about Jews is that they prefer their own kind to others." "Considering," says Gottfried;

the fears openly registered by American Jewish leadership about Jewish assimilation and Jewish intermarriage and considering that Mack may have actually experienced Jewish clannishness, his attitudes do not seem unreasonable. Mack mentions that he would be willing to date and even marry a Jewish woman, provided she did not treat him as an outsider.

Gottfried goes on (and this is the part that made me "lol"):

More important than the assumption of unproved prejudice are the interpreters' insistence that Mack's anti-Semitism typifies his attitude toward "outgroups like the Jews, Roosevelt and the Washington bureaucrats."

"At stake here," our author says, "is not the idle pastime of scribes. It is an attempt undertaken by prominent intellectuals to elevate pluralism into behavioral coercion."

We have moved from from individual responsibility and the promotion thereof to removing this emphasis and fading it away into collectivism and the therapeutic state. Statism is to cleans morality into relativism. And with this came the rise of multiculturalism in schools. Standardized testing becomes "racist," "intolerant," etc. because on average certain groups are able to test better than others.

Populism

Dr. Gottfried also spends time on populist movements in Europe and the U.S. In particular, a focus is on the French National Front. It combines elements of a (classically) liberal nature and of a nationalist nature. A major focus of it has been on the effects of mass immigration and crime. As you can imagine, the above on the therapeutic state applies very well to how populism has been attacked. These groups, as he shows, are not without contradictions or conflicts, though. And in the U.S. we have had a populism with runs for president by people like Pat Buchanan.

***

I read Gottfried's articles almost regularly as they appear on LRC, TakiMag, or VDare. One thing he has suggested in them is for a right-populist movement in the U.S. to look to the current movements in Europe and learn from them.

Now go buy the books of the trilogy at Amazon...

Continuing the theme of justice and crime, another region of conversation I will dive into is so-called "hate crimes." Please pardon me for thinking that all crimes are "hate crimes" and that all crimes are hateful and evil acts. This not only includes a truly wicked and evil act of a white heterosexual murdering a black or homosexual. It includes a white heterosexual murdering a white heterosexual. Or a black homosexual murdering a black homosexual. (Whatever.) All of these acts are just as evil and hateful as the others. They are all "hate crimes," as far as I am concerned.

("Hate crimes" compared to "love crimes"? . . . Or "hate crimes" versus "not so hateful crimes"? How do we determine if a given criminal fits into the former, hate, or the latter, not so hateful? Read his mind, and to what arbitrary and fuzzy end?)

Many are furious, I see, that President Bush, according to the Washington Times (8/7), "vows to veto hate-crime expansion for gays." Yes, it is the end of the world as we know it. Heaven forbid. Please, Mr. Bush, please pass more laws on the books that usurp state jurisdiction in place for nationalization. These issues always make me wonder: Are all problems and so-called "problems" to be "solved" at the dictator's president's hand? Must we always turn to politics as the (so deemed) "panacea" to everything? Why does not the Left learn its lesson from the Bush administration? You want to give all of this power of decision making to him? I guess they have figured it out. Bush is one of the better administrations they could have asked for.

"Hate crimes," be it for blacks or homosexuals (or any other minority or even majority groups), are not at all about justice or restitution. Far from. Crimes are crimes. And justice is justice----no matter who the given victim is (white, black, green) or the given aggressor is (white, black, green). Instead, what those who push for these types of laws are interested in, is the expansion of victim-hood between different groups, which is the promotion of victimization and conflict. They are seeking the wielding of state power to propagate multiculturalism and, as Paul Gottfried puts it, "the politics of guilt." What better way for the State to control more areas of life than to destroy any predominate cultural or social barriers? The majority culture does not need government support. That what it does not control, must be discouraged for what it does or can control. And what better excuse for the State to use to intervene and expand that interventionism in the lives of people?

As Murray Rothbard wrote in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, the ideology of egalitarianism has shifted into a new area of the idea of "oppression." This "oppression" does not even have to be actually coercive to be called "oppression." Today we have a group egalitarianism, he says. With victim groups and oppressors in a state of flux. The "victim" group deserves special privileges from government and special laws that benefit them at the expense of the "oppressor" group. Noticing or observing differences between groups is condemned (unless, of course, it is of condemnation of white heterosexual males). Political correctness has arisen.

What parameters do "hate crime" advocates propose? When a white kills a black, what justification do authorities have to exercise more punishment? Hypothetically, what if it could be somehow proven in a given case, where a white killed a black man, that the criminal killed the man not because of the color of skin? Or are advocates saying that this is not possible? Of course, they know it is possible. They know all of this. The point here is that the ability to determine if the murder took place based on skin color, or affected by skin color (or sexual preference, etc.) is fuzzy. Also why is skin color (sexual preference) just a determinate? Why not the color of the victim's eyes? How about the color of hair? How about height? Weight? Accent? Surely accent, for example, can be a distinctive characteristic of a person. And surely a criminal may have a deep grudge or hate of a person characterized with X accent. What gives one group special privileges versus another? The answer is that there is no rational way to determine that! Besides, even if one murdered someone because of one of these numerous factors or a combination thereof, that does not make the crime committed any more or less evil or monstrous.

Real justice demands that restitution, as far as humanly possible, occur to the victim who suffered an act of criminal aggression on his person and/or property. If the murder was the crime, the victim's family deserves justice as far as it is possible. What gives any minority so-chosen by the establishment (black, homosexual, whatnot) the verdict or earning more "justice" (or "rights") than majority groups so-excluded (white, heterosexual, whatnot). This belief is not a theory of justice, but one applying different sets of rights to different sets of people. This can only be done arbitrarily. Justice comes or derives from understanding property rights that all men have. All individuals have the same right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" or in summation, property. All justice derives from that. It is "hate crimes" that are muddled and inconsistent.

Ideological reasons above all motivate "hate crimes" and not any sense of legality, justice, or morals.

Furthermore, left-liberals do not even apply their idea of "hate crimes" consistently to the hard fact. Whites do not live up to this bizarre image of suppressing blacks or other minority groups at all time during the day, due to, I guess, having some deep secret hate of them. But, at the same time-----And who could deny this?-----whites, I suppose, that fill the government workforce apparently do not have this secret hate and disgust that the rest of the white public has, and therefore it is they that should regulate and control the behavior of everyone in society as in regards to race or other minority determinant criteria.

The left-neocon establishment makes sure that the only "hate crimes" that are covered and highlighted in the news is when a white does harm to a black------that is, when a majority person fitting XYZ criteria does harm to a minority person, so chosen by the establishment to be a victim group, matching ABC criteria. When it is a minority that does harm to a majority there is not as much outrage by the establishment. This is because it does not fit the politically corrected idea of whites suppressing blacks and other minority groups. "Hate crimes" today are only when whites aggress against so-chosen minority groups. If a black kills a white, this is not a "hate crime." Why, certainty this is a twisted view. All such acts as this, be it whatever people involved is evil just the same.

Even if we conceded, which I will not do, the point that there should be special laws for "hate crimes," they would have to be used entirely differently to actually correspond to the actual data. For convenient sake, to pull data off of Buchanan's syndicated article "The Washington Post and The Color of Crime," over at VDare.com (plus check out their blog), the reality is that black-on-white crime is far more common than the reverse. This is exactly the opposite notion that the establishment tells us and implies to us. Buchanan quotes figures from the book The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. The figures that are in this book come directly from FBI and Justice Surveys. "Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery." "43 percent of the victims of violent crime from blacks are whites." "Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse." And "in more than nine out of 10 cases, black victims are murdered by fellow blacks."

So, in conclusion, "hate crimes" have nothing at all to do with real justice, which derive from man's natural right to his person and property, but instead "hate crimes" are driven entirely by ideological motives and some mysterious, baloney "social justice" ethic that comes from the hate of property rights. As Frédéric Bastiat said, laws exist because there is property----not because law created property. Secondly, even if we say that these extra laws should be imposed as for establishing "hate crimes," we would then have to apply the notion of "hate crimes" differently as in regards to how they are applied today because the majority of so-termed "hate crimes" compared to non-"hate crimes" do not fit the billing, and the establishment would have to act and report accordingly.

As history demonstrates, all peoples, cultures, and civilizations are not equal. Some have achieved greatness often, others never. All lifestyles are not equal. All religions are not equal. All ideas are not equal. Indeed, what is true martyrdom but that most eloquent and compelling of all testimonies that all ideas are not equal.

"Indeed," Patrick Buchanan continued in his important book The Death of the West, "as all men are endowed differently with gifts, talents, and virtues, the only way to achieve equality of result is tyranny."

Equality as a utopian ideal has nothing noble about it. It goes against the very nature of what it means to be human. Taking it as an ideal to implement in society by violence and slavery would prove to be a failure. For this reason it is an erroneous ideal that must be rejected. As an impossible "ideal" it goes against the nature of man as a rational being.

Today we all know that there are certain taboo subjects that cannot be touched, even in an objective, inquiring manner. One that is covered all the time at this blog is the nature of the State. That it violates natural law. The law that derives from us being owners of our respected physical bodies and other tangible-scarce property we either justly acquired through homesteading or voluntary exchange. Whereas the State works on principles that are directly the opposite and hence violate them.

Another taboo in today's society is the ideology of egalitarianism. The reason is straightforward: It is taboo because it connects into the first taboo covered. The dogma of egalitarian ideology directly relates to statism in that statism uses this ideology for its own purposes to further advance itself. A key aspect of collective statism is that it wants to breakdown social barriers to tighten its control over civil society. The State's task is then of being managerial and therapeutic. To enforce this ideology and its political correctness it must resort to social engineering against bourgeois. It even explains why the "managerial elite" welcomes, and even encourages, mass immigration because it weakens bourgeois, creates more tensions in society, and expands the welfare state. Blurring or eliminating distinctions or differences between genders is another area that the statist establishment pushes for. This creates conflict between genders----especially in regards to their natural familial relationships----and breaks down social norms.

Ditto in regards to race.

(See "Race! That Murray Book" by Murray Rothbard and "Why Race Matters" by Michael Levin.)

We all know that Richard M. Weaver, Jr. would not be a writer for National Review if he were alive today. His views on the subject of war would forbid him. As would his sound, old-style conservatism.

On the subject of communism as it relates to the government's engineering of race and their relationships, here is what Weaver in 1957 wrote for the magazine:

The Communist attitude toward race stems from Communism's positivistic representation of man, which has always had one of its cardinal tenets the dogma that there are no real differences between people expect economic differences. Remove the economic differences and all the others----racial, cultural, social, and moral----disappear. Thus the collectivizing of the economy can be depended on to obliterate the various differences that keep people from being "socialized."

(However, the various engineering of blacks and their communities has very much backfired. Today, because of the welfare state, the black family is sadly in horrid conditions. This has only multiplied the problems in black communities, as Walter Williams and others have argued.)

Weaver went on:

There was a time when ownership of property gave the owner the right to say to whom he would and would not sell and rent. But now, with the outlawing of restrictive covenants by the Supreme Court (especially in Shelley v. Kraemer), this right has been invaded, if not effectually taken away. There was a time when owners had complete discretion as to whom they would and would not hire to work in their businesses.

Here we see that civil rights have been used as a major weapon against man's private property and his liberty. It has greatly empowered the State. This is why Richard Weaver in his essay said that the terms "integration" and "communization" are "closely synonymous."

(Listen to this mp3 lecture of Paul Gottfried on "The Therapeutic Welfare State.")

What's more, the promotion and expansion of civil rights and affirmative action has spread more social tensions and hostilities between peoples. It actually promotes and encourages this. Pat Buchanan is therefore spot-on when he says the following:

The ballooning budges of federal agencies-----the EEOC, the Civil Rights Commission, the civil rights divisions of Justice, Education, and HHS-----requires a steady supply of fresh ‘victims’ of racism. The more money these agencies receive, the more violators and victims they must find. [emphasis mine]

Unlike what the statist establishment says, fights against social-cultural-religious-racial ties are a revolt against nature. It most obviously revolts against human history. Take a look at immigration, for example. It is my position that some kind of "national" identity of social and cultural cohesion, of future orientation and preservation are a necessary part of a society filled with individuals working together in a division of labor; in the expression of culture; in the expression of community bonds; language; and so forth. Certainly, social and cultural cohesion, future orientation and preservation result in strong families. This includes not only the nuclear family, but the extended family too. It means stronger community ties and bonds between people. Stronger church life --- stronger community tradition --- etc. These are the things that build off a truly free and healthy society.

This max influx of mass immigration does not share in this and is not a natural growth of the above. It is instead largely a result of statist integration. Open the borders wide enough by having a free-for-all or "anarchy" (in the bad sense) on public property, create more public property, increase anti-discrimination laws, and/or increase the welfare state (which includes such things as government schools) then these social and cultural bonds that hold people together in a division of labor will be eroded or shattered.

After all, if, for example, a mass influx of people with a different language and culture just lands in another, there will be a communication breakdown and a social-cultural breakdown as well. The erosion of a common market-language is similar to a d-evolution of money to barter. (Language develops, in a way, similar to money through the free market.) And conflict will breed. Throw in a democratic government, this tendency will be further promoted. Only a free society assimilates most naturally and organically. It does not happen in a statist society, particularly if it is democratic.

(See "Language Anarchy May Fracture National Bonds" by Sam Francis and "National Self-Determination" by Murray Rothbard.)

But instead of a strong civil society with strong ties, along with Leviathan has come a dying civilization. Birthrates have been lowering to the point of not even being able to keep up with replacement levels. Does a free society commit suicide? I doubt it. This is only the predictable outcome in the rise of social and cultural degeneration and statism. 30 percent of pregnancies are aborted. 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. (This is up 350 percent since 1962.) Fewer than one in four households are nuclear families. One in four babies are born out of wedlock.

Sex today is considered some kind of joy ride and a pleasure above its natural role biologically and spiritually. Indeed, much of the culture throws out pornography. It has become more and more mainstream. Contraceptives are looked at as a blessing. Hedonism is more and more considered the norm. All forms of anti-social, anti-family lifestyles have been on the rise.

We are told that all lifestyles are “equal” and we cannot judge. Joe Sobran is right when he says we live in an era of nonjudgmentalism.

Thus the Frankfurt School of Cultural Marxism is alive and well.

Here is one example of Cultural Marxism at work in Hungary, as Buchanan writes about in his book. Cultural Marxists saw that they should bring about (Buchanan's words) an "annihilation of the good values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries." In particular they saw the importance of using the schools to their advantage:

Children were instructed in free love, sexual intercourse, the archaic nature of middle-class family codes, the outdatedness of monogamy, and the irrelevance of religion, which deprives man of all pleasures. Women, too, were called to rebel against the sexual mores of the time.

The Frankfurt School's "Critical Theory" bluntly represents: "essentially destructive criticism of all elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism."

In many ways the Critical Theory has accomplished its objectives.

How? Hans Hoppe has said that the State has used its power to promote "secular humanism, feminism, egalitarianism, moral relativism, multiculturalism, affirmative action, sexual liberation, and hedonism." "[T]he revolution has eroded man's will to live a productive life, to multiply, and to affirm and defend his own culture."

On the other hand, it has promoted statism. When government puts in a price control it is like throwing a rock in the pond. You see distortion waves. Freedom is an amazing thing. It is a complex network of relationships, hierarchical outgrowths, and so forth. When the government intervenes in the culture the same happens. You see distortion waves. Liberty and equality do not go together.

Even More on Immigration and The Death of the West

“Lockean Libertarians vs. Hume-an Nature” by Paul Gottfried is an interesting article I found. Some things I disagree with, but it is nonetheless an interesting article. Also worthy to note, Dmitry Chernikov at his website has a good reply letter to it.

***

In chapter ten of State of Emergency by Pat Buchanan, he quotes Sam Francis. In a nutshell, Francis made the comment in 1994 that only Western civilization could have made Western civilization. As Buchanan writes:

Had Francis sad this of Chinese civilization and the Chinese people, it would have gone unnoted. But he was suggesting Western civilization was superior and that only Europeans could have created it. If Western people perish, as they are doing today, Francis was implying, we must expect our civilization to die with us. No one would deny that when the Carthaginians perished, Carthaginian civilization and culture perished. But by claiming the achievement of the west of Europeans, Francis had passed beyond the bonds of tolerance. [pp 164-5]

This leads me to the main topic of this entry to The Paleo Blog...

Radical Individualism & Organic Culture

I.

Libertarianism is about radical individualism. Methodologically it takes an individualist stance. But as a libertarian myself and supporting the two things just mentioned (although, I believe in aristocratic individualism----like Albert Jay Nock), I also understand that individuals form institutions and relationships between each other. It is a sad thing that so many libertarians, especially many "in the Beltway" and leftist-libertarians, disregard culture as minor or unimportant.

One libertarian wrote on Strike-The-Root.com how people have to abandon “the group.” The problem was that he took it to the extreme. It is silly. People form groups. They are also apart of distinct groups. People belong to a specific gender and race. Like-people come together to form churches to worship. Like-people come together to share in culture and tradition. People come together in the free market to create businesses (which is kind of group). The world of commerce depends on man being social. Man is a social animal. He is also a spiritual animal------much to the detestation of some libertarians that have an irrational dislike of any kind of religion.

It is true that groups are nothing greater than the individuals that compose them. Butler Shaffer gave the example that a subway does not have a soul, anymore than a nation does. The soul belongs to distinct individuals, but they do interact with each other. Coercive powers to reshape the individual into a collective is destructive. Likewise, people abandoning their individuality for a collective is also destructive. But to think that individuality does not lead to individuals expressing themselves through the market place, family, friendship, kinship, culture, art, religion, and so forth with other individuals is foolish.

II.

In the same way, it is foolish not to see how a free society would form relationships with each other that include covenants, concordats, or whatnot. This would a major civilizing force. A force that would tighten the ability (that is, lack of ability) of atomistic individualism to express itself in whatever direction----destructive endeavor----that it wanted. Not all lifestyles are healthy individually, for one's family, or the growth and vitality of society at large, after all.

And I must say to traditional conservatives: If the majority of the public does not adopt traditional conservative values, then the government will most certainly not (unless it happens to be a traditional monarchy, perhaps). If these values are so weak (I do not believe so, and I bet most traditional conservatives do not either), then they will remain that. However, if they are strong and truer values, a free society can flourish them. Centralization of governmental power can only damage that. How could it not? Any natural outgrowths in a society in a statist condition become replaced with government centralization of power.

To go back to Butler Shaffer. He as a libertarian (see this article), along with many other libertarians, respect and admire the Amish. The Amish community is a perfect example of an organic and natural culture (although, maybe at the extreme end). It is a free and private community. THIS is freedom. That is, a representative of freedom.

We must all learn that freedom is the key prerequisite to a truly healthy culture and society. It allows individuals to truly express themselves together and flourish to the fullest. It is thus not something to be imposed by the point of the gun. Just as there are perverse unintended consequences of trying to economically engineer people, there are also perverse unintended consequences to socially or culturally engineer people.

III.

Occasionally people label someone like me as hating the poor and not wanting to help them. It is not like I am against helping the poor. And, really, how many people do you know like to see others suffer? Left-liberals and other statists know better, but they use childish emotionalism to attack people that actually use reason to see that the government interventionism increases poverty and misery. One method to help the poor is actually accountable and can help and the other one is not accountable and does not help on net. One increases community ties: of the nuclear family, the extended family, kinship relationships, neighbor & community relationships, the church, and so on. The other breaks this up. It is in freedom that these social intermediate institutions are strongest. Even as a libertarian, I understand this. It is this that helps to show the importance of cultural and social conservatism to mankind.

Someone that wants to socially engineer people in their limited image will always fail for obvious reasons. While it is true, I believe, that man will gravitate towards more conservative and traditional values because they are most natural and consistent, partly for the reasons just mentioned. And this is not to mention, as Hans Hoppe argues, conservatism is sociologically and praxeologically compatible to libertarianism unlike cultural leftism which propagate under statism with its promotion of high time preferences and its transfer of authority from traditional institutions to the State. But, still, men are different with each other as individuals and even categorically as groups or races.

It is therefore the preservation and promotion of the "old" culture (the transcending culture) is an important task in today’s world. It fights against statism and the centralized state. When people embrace statism versus actually engaging in productive free market and social-cultural activities, the death of Western civilization will be certain.

As mentioned here, production comes through actual voluntary transactions in a free market place of capitalism. Things that are really in need and that are really wanted by people will be produced because a demand exists. Government does not produce, but takes. Things that it creates with its looted goods is a system that is compulsory and monopolistic. Unlike the free market, its allocations will be faulty to the things it creates. Furthermore, the welfare state subsidizes bad behavior. Atomization of the individual from the ties of social institutions occur. Governments break these community and cultural ties apart. These social intermediate institutions are a natural part of society, i.e. the natural organic culture. They fulfill man's needs. ----- They fulfill man's spiritual and emotional needs.

The truth is that society needs to think about this, even a libertarian one. Because if people wanted to, they could stay home and become self-sufficient isolated households within their nuclear family. (It could happen now.) It would not violate libertarian ethics of conduct, but it would doom civilization. Or people could choose suicide. Again it would not violate libertarian ethics, but it too would obviously doom civilization----it would end it. (Thus we see here that libertarianism is only the foundation of society. Society is more than a foundation.)

IV.

To be honest, I think it is a falsehood when people say that we live in a culturally conservative nation. They use the example of homosexual "marriage" (a contradiction in terms) and say how most are against it. But if you turn on the TV, you see the majority of Americans watching all of this Hollywood crap. And if you turn the clock back only thirty or forty years, the values that people hold today would appear (and rightfully so) immoral to them.

This is a problem that the masses have----and will probably always have to a certain degree. In natural hierarchy in a free society, this is the only way that this can be changed. This must be combined with a free society's natural incentives and its returning of authority to its proper places.

Now for a word on the minority of people that really are concerned with today’s cultural leftism: Sadly, most of them think that all of this can be changed through politics and centralization. It cannot. The problem in the first place is statism. That is the heart of the issue and it and the things that have flown from that-------ideas----wrong ideas.

V.

Often (paleo)libertarianism is branded as a utopian idea. Maybe mankind as a whole will never get over its primitive instincts of using violence to control others by the point of the gun. Well, maybe.

But what really is utopian is the idea that paleoconservatives have. They believe that government can somehow be turned into a force for good. How can you turn government into a force for good? Government is meant to protect us, but it must first mug us. It is a contradiction.

They also fail to see that true (paleo)libertarianism expresses true (paleo)conservatism in a way that it could never.

I hope the above somewhat illustrated this. For instance, if you are Catholic and want to live under Canon Law, then you would have the freedom to do so. You could even get together with other like-minded people to develop such a community. It would be a private law society, but completely voluntary. The full expression of Catholic tradition and culture could be seen in anarcho-capitalism. So too could other cultural and religious traditions.

The authority in a free society would return to private property owners. The right to discriminate would be back. The right to from these types of groups would be back too. And so forth.

See "The Idea of a Private Law Society" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The objective of the paleolibertarian is to cut down the government and abolish it. It is my contention that libertarians that support open borders lead us to the very opposite; i.e., more statism, the deterioration of individual liberty, and social chaos. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe teaches us, “open borders” is a complete government fabrication. This fabrication would not exist in anarcho-capitalism. “Open borders“ only result from a Leviathan State.

Immigration is one of the most debated topics in libertarian circles. It is difficult to say what group has a greater number of people in it. I am inclined to say the “open border” folks. Those that are closer to the Mexican border, on the other hand, are probably more inclined, at least relatively speaking, to take the view that is more hostile to “open borders” due to their proximity to the fronts lines.

Yes, it may seem somewhat strange at first: How can those that want to demolish the State want some kind of border enforcement?

Maybe this will help. Here is another way to look at it: The state exists. This is a given. If one can only call the state police when someone trespasses on one’s property, then this is something one will have to do. There is no away around this fact, at least in the given environment. The government exists. It has a monopoly of certain things. Libertarianism would say that this should not be so. However given the current environment, what are the next best alternatives? The government outlaws competition when it comes to law and order. Because of this fact, it is better that the government provides some kind of court system, which can and does uphold some basic libertarian principles (e.g., protection from private thieves and private murders), then to have nothing at all. Understand, this does not mean that the free market could not handle these things. It is because of the fact that they are outlawed. It is also due to the fact that the public has not come to terms with the logic of anarcho-capitalism.

What is the fundamental axiom of libertarianism? It is that no one has the right to violate the property rights of others. Implied in this is that no one has the right to trespass on another’s property. Therefore, no one has the “right” to immigrate. One cannot unconditionally immigrate into my house, for instance. You can only enter my house if I allow you to do so. I may also attach conditions if you enter my house. But clearly you cannot enter it without my permission or invitation.

In an ideal world society would be fully based on private property. This includes things like roads, schools, courts, hospitals, et cetera. Borders in a libertarian world, as we now know them, would not exist. This does not mean, however, that today's semi-"anarchy" that is taking place by Mexico would continue or expand. On the contrary, today's open borders would be replaced by the law and order of the "borders" of private property.

Immigration takes on a new meaning in such a world, but all "immigrants" that you associate with would be voluntary. A multitude of individuals, communities, and other private institutions, in a sense, would “regulate” who does and does not enter. If a private (voluntary) community does not want foreign strangers to enter, they can be sure that they do not. Inherent in libertarianism is that people can dissociate themselves with anyone they want for whatever reason.

Private individuals, unlike the government, have the smarts to have a lock on their home door. Individuals don’t have “open borders.” We have the authority to choose---to “regulate”---who enters and who does not. Only the government has the perverse foresight to be foolish enough to have the door open to “its” geographically controlled territory. But it is much worse than that: The door is not only unlocked and wide open but inside the house there are many free gifts (welfare) waiting for those who enter! This is certainly a recipe for disaster. Government subsidizes immigration. In addition, due to the fact that “our” government is democratic, and its very nature is “open” compared to a monarchy’s “closed” nature, this tendency is further promoted. (See The Paleo Blog's "Restoring Liberty Step-by-Step: Striking Down Democracy.")

A business owner will only choose a worker that will (in his mind) benefit his business. There is no “revolving door.” If that were the case for a given businessman, then he will not be in business for long. Or imagine your home. What do you think would be the result of an “open door” policy with free giveaways inside? Do you think your home’s value will increase? The answer is a clear no. On the other hand, if you allowed some good handymen, they might improve the value of the house. But that does not come about through the “revolving door.” It is something no individual property owner would do. And they don’t. This “bad” does not just turn into a “good” when we apply it to a macrocosmic level, i.e. to a large land controlled by a monopolistic government. Immigration is only good through the active and diligent enforcement of private property rights, which include the freedom to choose and discriminate.

Today we live in a society with an ever large and growing Leviathan State. So much of private property is being stipulated to government control and dictation. Instead of people having the natural freedom to discriminate in any way, government forces people to be with those that they do not wish to be with (by various non-discrimination laws). Government produces forced integration. When someone must be forced to be with someone they do not wish to be, predictably resentment and conflict will result.

Government's existence depends on being a giant mega-parasite. It cannot live any other way. Its food does not come about through voluntary transactions, but by outright (involuntary) theft. To grow it needs more hosts that it can attach itself to. In the eyes of the government, to be healthy it needs a larger number of hosts. The greater the number of hosts the better. This is exactly why the state likes open borders! Any self-respecting libertarian should pause and reflect on this. A pretty good bet is that when government likes something, whatever that may be, then it is virtually assured that it is something that people should not like! It is the reason why this issue has gone almost unnoticed until recent years. Government has stood silent.

Citizens have gotten angry. Arizona past Prop 200 in 2004. It denies illegal immigrants access to voting and welfare. The support Prop 200 was overwhelming. But practically every single politician was against Prop 200. While a vast majority of the residents of Arizona opposed illegals having the "right" to vote and receive welfare, the politicians were only too happy to have illegals both voting and receiving welfare. Should that be a surprise? No. Democracy is all to happy to expand itself to illegals. It wants more hosts. (And because the government is democratic it also needs to expand its open entry system.) The only reason now some politicians are talking about this issue is because the public has felt the effects of immigrants they do not want to be around. There is no other reason.

For government to expand it also needs to break down and isolate the individual. Government needs to own the roads and large amounts of land. In order for it to tax someone it needs access to him. This results in "government's" property in bordering all privately owned property. This lowers people's ability to keep away people they do not wish to associate with. Once people are encircled with government from all sides, anyone can walk right into your property. This includes foreigners. Instead of being able to set up barriers to prevent unwanteds, government almost completely destroys the ability for people to do this.

From this we should be able to gather how unnatural the idea of a "open border" is. As Murray Rothbard wrote:

If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as "closed" as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors. ["Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State"]

Here is what Hans-Hermann Hoppe has to say:

Through forced integration individuals are isolated (atomized) and their power of resistance vis-à-vis the State is weakened. In the “logic” of the state, a hefty dose of foreign invasion, especially if it comes from strange and far-away places, is reckoned to further strengthen this tendency. And the present situation offers a particularly opportune time to do so, for in accordance with the inherently centralizing tendency of States and statism generally and promoted here and now in particular by the U.S. as the world’s only remaining superpower, the Western world—or more precisely the neoconservative-socialdemocratic elites controlling the state governments in the U.S. and Western Europe—is committed to the establishment of supra-national states (such as the European Union) and ultimately one world state. National, regional or communal attachments are the main stumbling blocks on the way to this goal. A good measure of uninvited foreigners and government imposed multiculturalism is calculated to further weaken and ultimately destroy national, regional, and communal identities and thus promote the goal of a One World Order, led by the U.S., and a new “universal man.” ["Natural Order, The State, and The Immigration Problem"]

This is the opposite of the libertarian goal of decentralization and ultimate privatization. Centralization leads to forced integration and open borders. Decentralization and privatization leads to the opposite. It should be expected that if libertarian values were winning what would happen is the breaking away of large states into smaller ones. It is inconceivable how this would not lead to increased community power and segregation. You cannot promote libertarianism and then promote open borders. They are incompatible.

Tax payers are forced to pay for public property. In these terms it is not government that owns them, but the taxpayers in correspondence to how much they pay in. That is to say, if person x pays z percentage of the public property he owns z percentage. Murray Rothbard said that we must reject the idea that all public property should be run like a sewer just because it is public. For example, if some bum is stinking up the public library, he should be kicked out. It is true that this public library should not exist. Only private libraries should exist. However, under the current circumstances, it should be run like a business.

Stephan Kinsella in his LRC article "A Simple Libertarian Argument Against Unrestricted Immigration and Open Borders,"* gives a good example. Right now the roads are owned by government. Is it un-libertarian of me or Mr. Kinsella to want some kind of rules for the roads? Both of us agree that they should be privatized. However, given that they currently are run by government, what is better: No rules on the road or Some rules? Obviously, I think most libertarians would say that there