Some Thoughts on Immigration

[helmuth_hubener]

However, outside of concerns about the effect of illegal immigration on the welfare apparatus there is no convincing reason to oppose immigration.

Here is another (potentially) convincing reason: The quality of a society is ultimately determined by the quality of the individuals in that society. Without good, quality people you cannot have a good, quality society, no matter how good (meaning libertarian) your institutions and laws may be.

If you have built a society with an average IQ of 98, and then decide to let in a flood of people with an average IQ of 87 (Mexico) or 79 (Guatemala), then the intelligence level of your society will be drastically altered. Regardless of how libertarian your laws are, you will now be surrounded by significantly stupider people. Perhaps that will be good for you personally, it could make you feel smarter by comparison, but perhaps it could be annoying to you to have to deal with unintelligent people on an everyday basis. To me, for my own personal preferences, I want to live around smart people. I think a more intelligent society is a better society.

That's just one metric. If you have a neighborhood that places a high value on work ethic, full of very hard-working, diligent people, that seems like a good thing to me. Hard work can be encouraged by being libertarian, by allowing men to keep all the fruits of their hard labor, but the character trait cannot be created. If you invite in a flood of people with a more lazy character, a "siesta" culture let's say, the nature of your neighborhood is going to change. It just is. It's going to be full of lazy people. Why? Because you just had a bunch of lazy people move in. It's simple physics.

Perhaps you value living in a city full of people with high skill and usefulness, pride in what they do, high competence. I certainly do. If you allow hundreds of thousands of low-skill people to move into your city, what will you have? A city full of low-skill people!

So, this simple fact of reality that the quality of a society rests upon the quality of its individuals -- a highly individualist insight that we as libertarians can readily understand and agree with -- leads us to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to have quality controls upon who can come into one's society. Not all individuals are of the same quality. Rational people who are interested in living in a high-quality society will invite people into their society that have something to contribute, that will raise the average and make the society a better place. They will not invite those who will lower the average and thus deteriorate the society they've worked so hard, for many generations possibly, to build.

[erowe1]

Here is another (potentially) convincing reason: The quality of a society is ultimately determined by the quality of the individuals in that society. Without good, quality people you cannot have a good, quality society, no matter how good (meaning libertarian) your institutions and laws may be.

If you have built a society with an average IQ of 98, and then decide to let in a flood of people with an average IQ of 87 (Mexico) or 79 (Guatemala), then the intelligence level of your society will be drastically altered. Regardless of how libertarian your laws are, you will now be surrounded by significantly stupider people. Perhaps that will be good for you personally, it could make you feel smarter by comparison, but perhaps it could be annoying to you to have to deal with unintelligent people on an everyday basis. To me, for my own personal preferences, I want to live around smart people. I think a more intelligent society is a better society.

That's just one metric. If you have a neighborhood that places a high value on work ethic, full of very hard-working, diligent people, that seems like a good thing to me. Hard work can be encouraged by being libertarian, by allowing men to keep all the fruits of their hard labor, but the character trait cannot be created. If you invite in a flood of people with a more lazy character, a "siesta" culture let's say, the nature of your neighborhood is going to change. It just is. It's going to be full of lazy people. Why? Because you just had a bunch of lazy people move in. It's simple physics.

Perhaps you value living in a city full of people with high skill and usefulness, pride in what they do, high competence. I certainly do. If you allow hundreds of thousands of low-skill people to move into your city, what will you have? A city full of low-skill people!

So, this simple fact of reality that the quality of a society rests upon the quality of its individuals -- a highly individualist insight that we as libertarians can readily understand and agree with -- leads us to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to have quality controls upon who can come into one's society. Not all individuals are of the same quality. Rational people who are interested in living in a high-quality society will invite people into their society that have something to contribute, that will raise the average and make the society a better place. They will not invite those who will lower the average and thus deteriorate the society they've worked so hard, for many generations possibly, to build.

Those individuals whom you consider lower quality on account of the lower IQs their brown skin gives them would still be of equally low quality no matter where on the globe they are. And I, as what you would consider a high-quality individual with the high IQ that my lighter skin gives me, would still be of equally high quality regardless where on the globe those lower quality people live. Having them on one-side of the US-Mexico border versus the other won't detract from my own quality as an individual.

You are inclined to make people-groups in your mind by bundling together a whole bunch of individuals and calling that bundle a society, and evaluate the quality of those people groups based on the qualities of the individuals in them. But all you're doing is moving around the boundaries that you use to group people together. When you move those boundaries and shift from grouping people together into one arrangement of societies to some other one, sure you end up with different levels of quality in the societies. But you haven't changed the individuals or the total global society of all the world's individuals.

[helmuth_hubener]

Geographical arrangement matters, erowe.

[fisharmor]

...society...society...society...institutions...so ciety...society...society...society...neighborhood ...culture...neighborhood...city...city...city...s ociety ...society...society ...society...society...society

Or, how about $#@! your society.

As soon as you position yourself to make judgments about how society needs to run and look, you become my enemy.
I don't care how multilateral or reasonable your judgment is.
The ring is evil, Frodo. Your desire to do good does not cancel out 8000 years of human history we have to examine.

[helmuth_hubener]

I am an anarcho-capitalist libertarian, fisharmor, same as you. I do not arrogate myself to make decisions for others, for "society," nor do I accept the right of anyone else to do so. OK?

OK.

The people who would be making the decisions about who to invite into their society are the owners of that society! The legitimate, bonafide owners. If the owner or owners of a neighborhood is/are opposed to allowing someone to live in that neighborhood, they can't move in. Sorry!

That's property rights.

That's freedom.

That's liberty.

The "liberty" to go trample on someone else's grass is not liberty at all.

[William R]

The norm used to be immigrants had to prove they wouldn't become a burden on the taxpayers.

We need to stop the illegal flow and enforce the laws on the books. Then return to a more normal flow of 200-250 thousand skilled self sufficient immigrants a year. And of course country of origin should play a major role. Admitting people from Muslim lands should all but be stopped. Ron Paul was the first to suggest it after 9/11. Not saying all Muslim are terrorists, but the facts are most terrorists today are Muslims

[thoughtomator]

Immigration proponents are thieves whose goal it is to steal from their neighbors to subsidize their labor costs.

If it were not so, they'd be clamoring to shut down the welfare pipeline a lot louder than they are clamoring to keep the labor dumping spigot on full blast.

[helmuth_hubener]

If it were not so, they'd be clamoring to shut down the welfare pipeline a lot louder than they are clamoring to keep the labor dumping spigot on full blast.

Well, libertarian immigration proponents are clamoring much louder to turn off welfare than to keep immigration unrestricted.

This is just an example of an honest, thoughtful disagreement, on an actually very interesting issue that warrants deep thinking.

[tod evans]

I'd like to propose a trade.

Doesn't matter where an immigrant comes from or how many there are, a federal employee must be expatriated to their country.

Start with the highest paid fed and work down from there.

[thoughtomator]

In Europe, mass immigration is now leading to the closing of borders for European citizens and the death of the passport-less Schengen Area.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...es-police.html

Thanks to immigration proponents like those here, Europeans will soon be less free to travel than they have been in generations.

[thoughtomator]

Or, how about $#@! your society.

As soon as you position yourself to make judgments about how society needs to run and look, you become my enemy.
I don't care how multilateral or reasonable your judgment is.
The ring is evil, Frodo. Your desire to do good does not cancel out 8000 years of human history we have to examine.

If you actually understood 8000 years of human history you would understand that the threat of barbarians at the gates is no phantom, and that your rabid desire to throw the gates open for them makes you, with respect to your fellow countrymen, either a traitor (strictly, not loosely, construed) or a dangerous madman who will get everybody killed.

[Brian4Liberty]

I'd like to propose a trade.

Doesn't matter where an immigrant comes from or how many there are, a federal employee must be expatriated to their country.

Start with the highest paid fed and work down from there.

An exchange program is very appealing.

Now you're talking. How about a citizenship exchange program? A mutually agreed to citizenship exchange between people from different nations. And if money is exchanged in the process between the individuals involved, good for them. Of course the second you propose such, Goldman Sachs will want to get in on the action, and somehow dominate or monopolize the process.

Perhaps what we need is a citizenship exchange program. A willing US citizen could exchange their citizenship with a willing Chinese citizen. And if either party wants to throw in something to sweeten the deal, that should be perfectly acceptable.

[erowe1]

Geographical arrangement matters, erowe.

How?

[erowe1]

If you actually understood 8000 years of human history you would understand that the threat of barbarians at the gates is no phantom, and that your rabid desire to throw the gates open for them makes you, with respect to your fellow countrymen, either a traitor (strictly, not loosely, construed) or a dangerous madman who will get everybody killed.

You say that as if you know anything about human history. Obviously you don't.

[erowe1]

In Europe, mass immigration is now leading to the closing of borders for European citizens and the death of the passport-less Schengen Area.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...es-police.html

Thanks to immigration proponents like those here, Europeans will soon be less free to travel than they have been in generations.

Is there a way to bookmark posts for future reference?

I want to be able to come back to this one as an example of, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength," type propaganda.

[erowe1]

The "liberty" to go trample on someone else's grass is not liberty at all.

You imposing laws on me that tell me I can't invite certain other people onto my property is the same as you trampling on my grass.

The "society" you own stops at your property line.

[helmuth_hubener]

You imposing laws on me that tell me I can't invite certain other people onto my property is the same as you trampling on my grass.

Ahh, it certainly would be. And I didn't ever disagree with that, did I?

Sometimes people don't fit neatly into the boxes you want to put them in.

Perhaps you should try to understand, rather than jump to emotional conclusions.

[helmuth_hubener]

How?

Well even in today's modern world, E., we humans still live in Locations. Yes, it may be quaint and outdated, yes perhaps someday the Singularity will erase all that and we can all upload our consciousnesses live in the Cloud. But that day is not today. Even with all our technology, a good portion of my quality of life and the nature of my life is directly related to my immediate surroundings. My street. My neighborhood. My city. My region.* People in Cabot, Vermont have a very different lifestyle, a very different set of opportunities, a very different society, a very different life than people in Calcutta, Bengal. Who your neighbors are matters. Proximity matters. Skype is no substitute for in-person interaction. You can't live your life on Skype. At least I can't. I live in the real world. And so, as great as virtual communities are, I want my real community to be awesome.

That's the whole point of what we're trying to do here on RPF, right? Make our country awesome! Well our country is going to be awesome if it's full of good people and it's not going to be awesome if it's full of not-so-good people. Not all people are of equal quality, E. Rowe, wouldn't you agree with that?

* ("My" is not to be taken literally here -- I do not own all these things. Yet.)

[helmuth_hubener]

My point in my OP is such a simple, logical point, it would seem everyone would agree with it. Everyone wants to be around good people (well, good people do). That would be one reason to prevent poorer-quality people from being able to come live around you.

Mr. Rowe responds to this simple, logical point in such a surprising, baffling way, I am mildly beside myself.

Those individuals whom you consider lower quality on account of the lower IQs their brown skin gives them would still be of equally low quality no matter where on the globe they are....Having them on one-side of the US-Mexico border versus the other won't [cause any problem / matter].

Well, the lower-quality people, if there are lower-quality people, will affect my life a good deal less (understatement) if they are two thousand miles away in a different sovereign nation than if they are my next-door neighbor, or checking my groceries, or robbing me. Surely you agree with this. Surely you cannot seriously expect to be able to hold and defend the position that it doesn't matter where anyone lives.

When you move those boundaries and shift from grouping people together into one arrangement of societies to some other one, sure you end up with different levels of quality in the societies. But you haven't changed the individuals or the total global society of all the world's individuals.

Alas! It appears that actually is the position you propose to hold. You are in all soberness and seriousness saying, "It doesn't matter where people live, how they move themselves around, because the total sum and aggregate quality of humanity remains the same."

Does this seem strange to anyone else?

Surely no one could seriously have this view!

But I try to understand. Really I do. I make the effort. Could you be coming at this from just a pure altruistic / save-the-world point of view? Could it be your only interest in politics, in philosophy, in life, is to improve all of humanity in aggregate? You're not concerned with whether Maine gets better, could care less whether the quality of your own life gets better, you are such a big-hearted, Universal Man you've risen above such selfish ugliness and care only about humanity as a whole. Is that basically it?

You are inclined to make people-groups in your mind by bundling together a whole bunch of individuals and calling that bundle a society, and evaluate the quality of those people groups based on the qualities of the individuals in them.

Umm, I'm just stating the obvious, actually, which I'm sure you'd agree with: that a society is a group of individuals. The whole is made up of its parts. Incontestable. Not rocket science.

But all you're doing is moving around the boundaries that you use to group people together.

You're saying I'm playing with abstractions in my mind, just meaningless games of changing definitions of entities ("societies") that don't actually exist. Actually, I am firmly grounded in actual, physical reality. My point is simple, logical, and easy to understand, not abstract at all. It is physical. People live in different places. When someone physically moves their body to be in my neighborhood, it is not that I've played some airy-headed abstract game with myself redefining him as now part of my society. He moved himself. Physically! He's there! This has actual, real life consequences in the actual, physical world!

Please, come out of the cloud and join us, E. Rowe. Logic!

[thoughtomator]

Ahh, it certainly would be. And I didn't ever disagree with that, did I?

Sometimes people don't fit neatly into the boxes you want to put them in.

Perhaps you should try to understand, rather than jump to emotional conclusions.

All he understands is that someone wants him to stop stealing. And that makes him mad.

[staerker]

What is your metric for a "quality" person, what authority do you have to conclude such, and why are you proselytizing your fantasies of a centrally planned society if you claim you would never support such?

[thoughtomator]

What is your metric for a "quality" person, what authority do you have to conclude such, and why are you proselytizing your fantasies of a centrally planned society if you claim you would never support such?

ooh! let me start

"understands that 12-year-old girls (and boys) are not appropriate targets for sexual advances"

[Dianne]

It concerns me, when you see headlines like this on drudgereport right now:

More than half if immigrants on welfare

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...port/71517072/

and:

Out of every 1,000 resettled U.N. refugees, more than 700 come to America

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/loca...=email-premium

[staerker]

ooh! let me start

"understands that 12-year-old girls (and boys) are not appropriate targets for sexual advances"

Is that your single metric, and, on what authority can you claim that to be true?

[staerker]

And, if there are any others, by whose authority do you make those assertions?

[thoughtomator]

Is that your single metric, and, on what authority can you claim that to be true?

Nope, just the start of a list which I expect others to contribute to. I'm not even taking the easy stuff like "won't be a permanent dependent of the welfare system" - oh oops. Well there's two. Chime on in, folks!

[thoughtomator]

And, if there are any others, by whose authority do you make those assertions?

I'm doing it on my own damn authority. We the people are sovereign here, and therefore I have as much a right to make these decisions as anyone else.

Respec mah autori-tah!

[staerker]

Okay. So you have no objective moral reasoning behind your statements then, at least none you are willing to discuss.

[phill4paul]

Is IQ the ultimate determining factor for YOUR community, helmuth? Because I would rather moral compass. There are many that I know that would never be admitted to Mensa but are the kindest, gentlest and most loving people I have ever met. And what if, in YOUR community, I as a landowner decided these were the exact kind of people that I wanted to move in?

[thoughtomator]

Okay. So you have no objective moral reasoning behind your statements then, at least none you are willing to discuss.

I've laid out my objective moral reasoning in great detail, feel free to scan the archive of my posts for it. More detail than you can process, most likely.