But it does look like the idea of the country belonging to some "us" and "we" belonging to the country has been lost over time. The result may be more individual freedom, but also a greater vulnerability to the great currents that make their way about the world and a greater likelihood of being displaced by them. It's a risk many of us are willing to take, but I wonder if we really have any clue what we are getting into.
The pressure against our borders, and the demand for border control, arise from violations of rights: by oppressive governments in other lands, and by our own overextended, redistributive state.
The current state of the world is very sad. Essentially, if you're not a resident of one of a small group of countries, your life is likely to be nasty, poor, and brutish, and possibly short -- largely because most of the governments of the world are so predatory that the Cosa Nostra would have nothing to teach them. The desire to become a resident of one of the more civilized countries, among which our own ranks highest, needs no further explanation.
In the years before our welfare state really got cranked up, Americans had no real objection to immigrants. Anyone who came here had to support himself, just as did anyone who was born here. He had to learn English to get along here. He had to obey the laws, respect civil order and observe public peace. He was cut no slack -- and maybe was held to a stricter standard than native born Americans -- simply because he came from another land.
Today, law-abiding American citizens are at a tremendous disadvantage in coping with non-taxpaying, non-English-speaking, non-civil-peace-preserving immigrants who are frequently adopted as mascots by the professional victimists. The citizen feels a tremendous sense of unfairness about all the allowances that are made for immigrants, particularly Hispanic immigrants. Combine this with some "amateur sociology" -- Hispanic and Southeast Asian gangs rampant in our cities; Hispanic and Caribbean dominance in the drug trade; the amazing incidence of AIDS and other venereal diseases among persons of Caribbean origin -- and the prevailing distaste for immigrants, legal or illegal, needs no further explanation.
But let the deeds of governments be subtracted from the equation, and the pressure on our borders would fall to much lower levels. Of course, I'm talking wave-a-wand Utopia, here; no one believes that either the tyrannical, predatory nature of Third World governments or the American welfare / victimism state can be banished that easily. But without those drivers, why would immigrants seek America in such large numbers? Our streets aren't really paved with gold, and by now everyone knows it!
My point is this: There's no aspect of the problem that requires that we establish a positive right to control the borders, as a matter of rights theory. Professor Hoppe would have to work pretty hard to persuade me that any such right exists, even though we're agreed that these mass movements of population are part of a great geopolitical illness that must be corrected. The problem arises from the tramplings of rights by various governments.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
It occurred to me before that the ideal libertarian government is not a republic but a constitutional monarchy, because that would utilize the monarch's interest in having no competition from the growing apparatus of state.
Goetz, can you bump our resident monarchists?
Yeah, right! This guy sounds like a libertarian the way John Ashcroft sounds like a libertarian. ;-) (Well, he's a bit closer than John Ashcroft...)
"Even if there are employers who want immigrants, it does not mean other citizens want to share parks..."
If the citizens don't want to share parks, simply have private parks, and limit the attendance to those who can pay the attendance fee. In other words, those citizens who don't want to share parks should go to private parks.
"...shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with them."
Just who the @#$% are these people, who don't want to share shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with immigrants?! What makes these people think WE want to share shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with THEM?! I say to these people, "Get the @#$% out of America, and let the rest of us share it with hard-working, tax-paying immigrants!"
"Therefore, if capitalists really want foreign workers, they should keep them in self-sufficient company towns rather than force them on the rest of us."
I suggest the author go live in a company town, rather than force himself on the rest of us!
"...the absence of any form of forced integration..."
There is no "forced integration" of U.S. immigrants with "natives." Immigrants buy or rent from people that willingly sell or rent to them. Case closed. If the author or anyone else doesn't want to live next door to immigrants, he should simply buy his neighbors' land whenever the neighbor wants to sell. Or rent from his neighbor when ever his neighbor wants to lease. The author has no "right" to decide who his neighbors should be, anymore than his neighbors have a right to decide whether he should live in his house/rental unit.
"Immigration policy, in Hoppe’s controversial view, is just one example of how democracies are inferior to monarchies."
No, immigration is an example of why democracies are inferior to the constitutional republic these U.S. of A. were designed to be.
"[B]ums and unproductive people may well be preferred as residents and citizens, because they create more so-called ‘social problems,’ and democratic rulers thrive on the existence of such problems."
That's why the U.S. should be the constitutional republic it was designed to be, rather than the democracy it currently is. The FEDERAL rulers would be prevented from attempting to solve social problems by the 10th Amendment. And State and local rulers would be checked by the fact that, if they invite a bunch of bums to their area, everyone else (i.e., those that actually pay taxes) will leave. (Or those who are already there will simply refuse to sell/rent to the bums, assuming that the bums don't have enough money to meet market prices.)
"Prof. Hoppe takes the view that cultural conservatism is not compatible with the big-government nanny-state democracy inevitably brings."
Like I wrote before, the U.S. was NOT designed as a democracy, but as a constitutional republic. If only Republicans would join Libertarians (and to a far lesser extent, Constitutional Party members) in demanding that the federal government be returned to its constitutional limits! Since Republicans are currently hold the Presidency, the House, almost the Senate, and the Supreme Court, if Republicans would actually follow the Constitution, virtually all problems would be solved!
"What to do? Prof. Hoppe thinks it is pointless to tinker with policy, thereby leaving the “territorial monopolist of compulsion” in place. He insists on outright abolition of government, with private, competing organizations assuming its few genuinely useful functions. He thinks insurance companies could protect against crime and invasion, just as they do against natural disasters. He also thinks that in the absence of government, natural aristocrats would arise to arbitrate contract disputes between citizens."
Professor Hoppe is a capitalist-anarchist, not a libertarian. Libertarians recognize the usefulness of limited government. Especially a limited federal government, as specified in the Constitution and its amendments.
In short, the more realistic solution to the vast majority of problems associated with immigration (and everything else) would be if Republican elected officials actually followed the Constitution! (Crazy thought, I realize.)
Mark (real Libertarian)