The Chief’s Thoughts: Cutting Through the Nonsense on Borders – Being Libertarian

I am an open-borders libertarian.

That is bound to trigger a substantial amount of readers, because upon reading that statement various preconceptions may arise in their minds. I am a cuck who wants to see our values be raped by foreigners; and I am a left-libertarian who naively believe in tolerance when authoritarian Muslims will never reciprocate.

Except, neither of these things are true.

On the contrary, I firmly identify myself with right-libertarian values. Murray RothbardsThe Ethics of Libertyis what I consider to be a libertarian bible of sorts, and I subscribe to Hans-Hermann Hoppes argumentation ethics in principle. I regard Western values as vastly and unquestionably superior to anything else available, and I regard Islamism and Islamic law as one of the greatest threats to human freedom.

However, I regard several other things as greater threats to human freedom than even Islamism and Islamic law. Full disclosure: I am a South African. South Africans do not have the luxury of debating the petty differences between the major parties who propose to increase taxes. In various parts of Africa, the choice is between Ultimate Marxism, Advanced Marxism, and Lite Marxism. Classical liberalism or even American liberal Keynesianism are not even on the menu. And if there was any doubt: This Marxism is the very same Marxism which was thought up, developed, and exported from Europe. Marxism is a Western ideology. And Marxism, not Islamism, is what is actively leading to South Africas imminent economic and social collapse.

Socialism and all its branches and associates, which in the United States and Europe, arecomingfrom within, is the biggest threat to the continued survival of Western civilization and Western freedom. Subtract mass immigration or refugee intakes, and this problem remains unchanged. In Europe, especially, it does not even matter who immigrants vote for: Socialism has been part of the European politicalfabric for centuries to greater and lesser extents.

Closed-borders libertarians propose to focus much time and effort on a minor itch when there is a massive, gushing wound which deserves more attention. But we oppose both! is the inevitable answer except, this is largely false. Individuals like Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, and Marine Le Pen, despite their blatantly-obvious socialist, or welfarist at least, credentials, received widespread moral, if not practical support from closed-borders libertarians. That is to say, these individuals purposefully made the gushing wound bigger in order to try and solve the itch. This, in America, while they were actively condemning Rand Paul and Gary Johnson for relatively superficial (but not unimportant) imperfections.

Do not get me wrong: I agreewholeheartedlythat refugees should not benefit in the slightest from welfare. In fact, I dont think anyone should benefit from welfare. I have in discussions proposed that instead of telling individuals fleeing for their lives to fuck off, perhaps support very strict legal barriers to them receiving welfare. But in these discussions, my opponents inevitably move on to absurd positions like They use our roads! Taxpayers not refugees paid for those roads! At this stage, it becomes astoundingly clear that there is a reasonableness deficit, for even when I point out that the absolute poor citizens of a nation also often do not contribute tax revenue to the maintenance of roads, they are still, according to closed-borders libertarians, entitled to use the roads. It is obvious from that stage onward that the concern is not about the ethical principles of private property, whereby those who do not contribute must not benefit, but rather about a primitive nativism which is wholly unrelated to libertarian theory.

All this is to say that we need to ensure that we are not talking past each other on the debate about borders. Fundamentally hopefully both open and closed-borders libertarians are on the same side, and differences are to be expected. The problem arises when malicious strawmen are erected whereby open-borders libertarians are accused of enabling communism, supporting the death of Western civilization, or, the most common strawman, that we oppose any and all kinds of vetting. Open-borders libertarians almost unanimously agree on what Austin Petersen would call the Ellis Island model of immigration: a criminal background check and a health check. What open-borders libertarians do oppose, however, is when government has the audacity as a fundamentally anti-economic institution, to tell an immigrant that their skills arent needed or some other lame reason which government has no right to rely upon.

The borders debate has led to much unnecessary tension in the libertarian movement, but has led to necessary debate. My concern is that both sides are talking past each other and, if the strawmen can be set aside, we might be able to discuss the topic with some more understanding. We do, after all, believe in the very same principles.

This post was written by Martin van Staden.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Martin van Staden is the Editor in Chief of Being Libertarian, the Legal Researcher at the Free Market Foundation, a co-founder of the RationalStandard.com, and the Southern African Academic Programs Director at Students For Liberty. The views expressed in his articles are his own and do not represent any of the aforementioned organizations.

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The Chief's Thoughts: Cutting Through the Nonsense on Borders - Being Libertarian