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Thread: Do you support unlimited immigration into US

  1. #181
    Quote Originally Posted by undergroundrr View Post
    Yeah, so two replies but nobody's addressed the issue. Would you trade liberty for security?

    Or more pointedly, are you willing to violate my liberty for your security?

    I love the stench of false-dichotomy-set-out-as-bait in the morning... it smells like... FAIL
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



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  3. #182
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    People hold every right to defend their property, whether owned individually, or in some common manner.
    You can defend what is YOURS You can defend what you hold in common with other men.You cannot defend what is MINEor prescribe how I make use of it even if your friends all agreeMINE IS STILL MINE

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  4. #183
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    I love the stench of false-dichotomy-set-out-as-bait in the morning... it smells like... FAIL
    Well put. More liberty leads to more security. Security imposed by government guns leads to freedom from responsibility, which feels like freedom but isn't. It's sad that immigration hawks (deliberately?) misunderstand this.
    Partisan politics, misleading or emotional bill titles, and 4D chess theories are manifestations of the same lie—that the text of the Constitution, the text of legislation, and plain facts do not matter; what matters is what you want to believe. From this comes hypocrisy. And where hypocrisy thrives, virtue recedes. Without virtue, liberty dies. - Justin Amash, March 2018

  5. #184
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    Moderation is a concept unknown to liberals. They drive extreme points of view and relish watching the world burn.
    I have it!

    What say we call them "Neros" from now on? Fiddling as the world burns, engorged.

    To be explicit, a Nero is someone manifesting all the most deeply unflattering characteristics of a progressive stooge. They perfectly embody FAIL - they are fearful, avaricious, ignorance, and lassitude. They have no ethic beyond getting what they want at any cost to others; no compunction to see those not of their own ilk trampled and indeed extinguished from the book of life, because they view the "other" as an enemy to be vanquished and burned to fly-ash. That last bit is particularly ironic in view of how they rail endlessly about how those not them regard the "other" with fear and hatred.

    The Nero is the penultimate Weakman - sneaky, sniveling, self-important, self-absorbed, hateful, terrified, timid, uncreative, dull, unable or unwilling to see beyond their narrow world views, wanting of things but not of the work necessary to attain them properly. They are vicious, completely sociopathic, yet claiming a moral high ground over the rest and thereby the authority to see those not on board reduced to oblivion.

    Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the Nero.





    No no no... no need to stand... seriously, your applause are... well, alright, thank you so much.

    Last edited by osan; 02-13-2018 at 10:33 AM.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



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  7. #185
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    What rights are you willing to have trampled when immigrants demand you adopt their cultural values that found upon authoritarianism?

    That blade cuts both ways.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  8. #186
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    By the logic of those who argue for wholly open borders, I am obliged to allow strangers to enter upon my front pastures and pitch tents or build cabins and start farming.
    Wow, not even the most delusional of immigration hawks have stooped to this straw man. Or do you just believe the whole concept of property rights is invalid? I'm truly confused here.
    Partisan politics, misleading or emotional bill titles, and 4D chess theories are manifestations of the same lie—that the text of the Constitution, the text of legislation, and plain facts do not matter; what matters is what you want to believe. From this comes hypocrisy. And where hypocrisy thrives, virtue recedes. Without virtue, liberty dies. - Justin Amash, March 2018

  9. #187
    Quote Originally Posted by undergroundrr View Post
    Well put. More liberty leads to more security.
    Generally, I agree, but everything has its limits.

    Security imposed by government guns leads to freedom from responsibility,
    Could not agree more. Security imposed by individual guns is the only responsible, avenue to freedom, all else equal. We have become far too willing to turn our backs to our responsibilities, all too happy to pawn them off onto others, security being one of the big instances of this. It's the only reason that police departments exist.


    which feels like freedom but isn't. It's sad that immigration hawks (deliberately?) misunderstand this.
    The same can be said of those advocating for completely open borders. As I wrote elsewhere, that blade cuts all ways.

    Security and freedom are not mutually exclusive. The key lies in how they are put into practice and part of doing that properly lies in having a broader view of human relations. That view is in very short evidence among meaners.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  10. #188
    Quote Originally Posted by undergroundrr View Post
    Wow, not even the most delusional of immigration hawks have stooped to this straw man. Or do you just believe the whole concept of property rights is invalid? I'm truly confused here.
    Then you are not reading carefully. I cannot repair that.

    As mentioned elsewhere, because you disagree I ask you where in the sand is that bright line to be placed where I am within my rights to defend you from trespass?

    Hypothetical: I own every inch or our southern border from Las Palomas to Tijuana River, say one mile northward.

    Would it be your contention that I must allow immigrants to cross my property to get into America?
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  11. #189
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    Not much of a response. "The dream of reason produces monsters"? My Spanish sucks so I may have gotten this wrong.

    But if I assume you are face-palming, may I point you to those who have flooded into Europe who are not only making those very demands of the nations in which they are guests, they have made it plainly clear that their intention is to breed Europeans effectively out of existence. Given the relative fertility rates, something like about 1 to 8.x, any assertion that this is unreasonable is itself unreasonable.

    What, then, are you getting at? Please help my very tiny brain.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  12. #190
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    You can defend what is YOURS You can defend what you hold in common with other men.You cannot defend what is MINEor prescribe how I make use of it even if your friends all agreeMINE IS STILL MINE
    Then we agree, so what is your point?
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  13. #191
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    Not much of a response. "The dream of reason produces monsters"? My Spanish sucks so I may have gotten this wrong.

    But if I assume you are face-palming, may I point you to those who have flooded into Europe who are not only making those very demands of the nations in which they are guests, they have made it plainly clear that their intention is to breed Europeans effectively out of existence. Given the relative fertility rates, something like about 1 to 8.x, any assertion that this is unreasonable is itself unreasonable.

    What, then, are you getting at? Please help my very tiny brain.
    The title of the work is in the URL. But you know that.
    Moving from visual expression to literary, we again visit Orwell:
    "You asked me once," said O'Brien, "what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already.
    Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."


    The state at it's quintessence is fear. Your fear. My fear.
    Fear of Guns. Nuclear Armageddon. Booze. Terrorists. Papists. Injuns. Immigration. Loneliness. Disease. Bullying. Commies. Neighbors. The list is as infinite as the horrors that haunt Room 101. If there was no fear, there would be no state.
    The "Freeman" lives without fear.
    Life is about change. You want the Walls of Jericho to be made thicker. I'd like to be able to leave.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  14. #192
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    The title of the work is in the URL. But you know that.
    Actually, I don't.

    Moving from visual expression to literary, we again visit Orwell:
    "You asked me once," said O'Brien, "what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already.
    Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."
    Sorry, small brain... you're too subtle for me.

    The state at it's quintessence is fear.
    We agree.

    If there was no fear, there would be no state.
    We still agree.

    The "Freeman" lives without fear.
    We depart. Only an idiot lives without fear. The question is not fear in sé, but the nature and degree of it. There are things rightly feared - becoming a slave, for example, is a healthy fear so long as it it indulged in proper measure. The same can be said for accidentally shooting yourself with your sidearm, being hit by a freight train, and so forth down a very long list.

    It is when fear is indulged without rational reason and/or in disproportion to the thing feared taht problems arise. That is MORBID FEAR and is self-destructive, as well has being harmful in its results to the rights and valid interests of others, such as when that fear drives one onto a revolutionary bandwagon where atrocity is gussied up to appear as something noble.

    Life is about change.
    Too broadly stated. Perception is a major factor in "change". Regardless, people hold every right to live as they please and hold the same right to protect themselves from trespass.

    At the end of the day, fear is indeed a factor, but not all fear is invalid. People have demonstrated and continue to show that some fear is well justified. We could dwell in the the metaphysical rabbit hole and ask what is really real, and so forth. I see no benefit in it and am willing to assume that our existences are real enough. Given this, given how some people behave, caution that roots ultimately in fear is proper to all wishing to remain free and bodily intact.

    There are bad guys out there, whether those from other lands or the beltway. Juts because you are a prospective immigrant, it does not follow you are entitled to enter here. In an ideal world it might be different. In this one, it is not.

    You want the Walls of Jericho to be made thicker. I'd like to be able to leave.
    Depends on where the wall is, its actual purpose and effect, and how it is administered (in the relevant sense). As for you leaving, I don't think you have any trouble there. You are free to go when and as you please, just as anyone else is.

    I don't much like the idea of a wall, BTW. I don't like the land being made to look like a giant prison. I'd rather armed patrols until such time as all potential threats to the few remaining shreds of my liberty are gone. By a similar token, I don't like that I need to arm myself against rotten government or muggers on the streets, but I do it because reason and rationality behoove it of me.

    We all have our ideals - mine is perfect anarchy where everybody treats one another properly. We do not live in that world. Therefore, I arm myself wherever I go, regard strangers askance until they demonstrate themselves reasonable and decent, and protect the borders of a region of the world that is the target of bad men who would do the people therein harm. And as you obliquely pointed out, the manner, degree, and targeting of that fear is key to making proper use of it. Fear, in its proper measure, keeps us alive and intact. To ignore it is to adopt insanity.
    Last edited by osan; 02-13-2018 at 11:45 AM.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



  15. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  16. #193
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    As mentioned elsewhere, because you disagree I ask you where in the sand is that bright line to be placed where I am within my rights to defend you from trespass?
    Again you're being unclear. Do you mean defend my property from somebody else trespassing on it? Why would you be required to do that?

    Do you mean defend from my trespassing on your property? Why wouldn't you assert your right to keep me off by any means necessary?

    Hypothetical: I own every inch or our southern border from Las Palomas to Tijuana River, say one mile northward.

    Would it be your contention that I must allow immigrants to cross my property to get into America?
    Why? They could still go around. It would require a trip of a few miles by sea.

    As Ron Paul has pointed out, you'd need to really beef up the coast guard to stop immigration altogether. (Sorry kahless.)

    Regardless, your hypothetical land grab could only happen with government collusion. The pressure for freedom of movement and trade on both sides would present incredible obstacles to the acquisition, and there's no way you could acquire all the land to seal it up if you had the money of Gates and Bezos combined. Fortunately for you, Nancy Pelosi and Jared Kushner and Janet Yellen own that land so you don't have to go to such effort. Oh they don't own it? Well, they have a lot more control over it than you do by a very long shot.

    Say Richard Spencer gets elected president - Should the government be allowed to seize your southern border property by eminent domain, just in case you start letting immigrants across? Should it secure the land north of you to make sure you don't get across?
    Partisan politics, misleading or emotional bill titles, and 4D chess theories are manifestations of the same lie—that the text of the Constitution, the text of legislation, and plain facts do not matter; what matters is what you want to believe. From this comes hypocrisy. And where hypocrisy thrives, virtue recedes. Without virtue, liberty dies. - Justin Amash, March 2018

  17. #194
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Not on the liberal view

    It has a right to exist and do certain things (for the purpose of minimizing aggression overall), but it owns nothing in the sense you mean.

    Its rights are entirely contingent (on their being exercised for the purpose of minimizing aggression), not at all like "ordinary" property rights.
    You are right about most issues but immigration is special since nobody's rights are involved, foreigners have no right to come here and individual citizens have no right to invite them here in violation of whatever rules the group makes, since a total ban doesn't violate anyone's rights it is within the discretion of the owners to enact if they so please.



    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    My position is that these alleged collective property rights don't exist in the first place, but I ask this question, because, if you deny that these alleged collective property rights are alienable, that is yet another way in which your property theory is illiberal (liberal property rights are always alienable). I assumed you would deny alienability, since otherwise your preferred political system would gradually evolve into something else, something not democratic (like a corporation with a small number of people holding most of the shares).
    Sovereignty is special, it is a sacred trust and responsibility, it can't be sold because the purchaser is not allowed to buy it even if you claimed that the seller was allowed to sell it.
    Last edited by Swordsmyth; 02-13-2018 at 10:12 PM.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  18. #195
    Quote Originally Posted by undergroundrr View Post
    Again you're being unclear. Do you mean defend my property from somebody else trespassing on it? Why would you be required to do that?
    Ah yes, I got that sentence a bit screwed up.

    Not defend YOU, but FROM YOU - "you" the third-person, and not necessarily you specifically.

    Why wouldn't you assert your right to keep me off by any means necessary?
    I would. The logic extends to other areas as well.

    It is plain to see that the ultimate policy will be more or less arbitrary no matter whose opinion prevails.

    Why? They could still go around. It would require a trip of a few miles by sea.
    That's really very much beside the point, which is that a border area is not somehow magically endowed with some special quality that renders it fair game for anyone to cross. If I own all the border land, I get to say whether people can come across the land. If my ancestor managed the riparian rights all the way to the Canadian border, then I am within my rights to limit land or water ingress. The same if I owned all border lands and waters around the continental USA. Then the only routes in would be boring underground or by air/spacecraft... or inter-dimensional transport.

    As Ron Paul has pointed out, you'd need to really beef up the coast guard to stop immigration altogether. (Sorry kahless.)
    You complained earlier about a strawman - well, this is exactly that. I don't think anyone is speaking against immigration, but that we the people hold the right to set standards and conditions of entry. So sorry, but as mentioned elsewhere, I don't want every half-pint, low-rent scumbag dictator to empty his prisons, dumping his criminals on the USA. Castro did it, so nobody can say that it cannot happen because it has. Nor do I want hordes of "refugees" pouring in from other lands, particularly such place where the cultures are anathema to that of this one. An army of millions marched freely into Europe. Screw that.

    It can be said that we are the holders of claim to this land. Therefore, we can set the conditions under which outsiders come in. Period. This is no different in principle than my right to determine who may or may not enter upon my property.

    Regardless, your hypothetical land grab could only happen with government collusion.
    In principle, you are mistaken. It most certainly could happen. Given the circumstances, as well as what would be required, we can agree that it would be nearly impossible.

    The pressure for freedom of movement and trade on both sides would present incredible obstacles to the acquisition, and there's no way you could acquire all the land to seal it up if you had the money of Gates and Bezos combined. Fortunately for you, Nancy Pelosi and Jared Kushner and Janet Yellen own that land so you don't have to go to such effort. Oh they don't own it? Well, they have a lot more control over it than you do by a very long shot.
    And once again, you are evading the point, which is that IF (<-IMPORTANT SEMANTIC MODIFIER ALERT!!!!!!!) I held all that land, people from MX would no longer be coming across if I so ordained it. Those doing so would be stopped and that would be the end of that - no more argument because the issue would be moot on principle.

    What we are seeing in this issue is a symptom of a malady that transcends the specific questions at hand. Empire is poison, perhaps we might agree. Population pressures do nothing to help the situation. We as a species have trod down a really bad path. I wish it were not so, but it is. Therefore we take measures as matters of practical necessity. All the usual questions hold - who decides, on what basis, on what authority, and so on. But to sit idly and allow anyone with an ax to grind dance freely across the border of a land whose leaders are busily pissing off the rest of the world, much of which seeks to destroy us make no rational sense.

    Someone, somewhere, $#@!ed us. Our ancestors put the boots to us all - sold themselves and their posterity into servitude. The entire planet is a human disaster area, thanks to thousands of years of tyranny made possible by the Empire mindsets of collectivism, divine right of kings, and all the other horse$#@! notions that tyrants have pulled from their asses and foisted upon those who meekly accepted them, instead of slitting all the right throats.

    So here we stand in a world of $#@!, to borrow private Pyle's last words prior to blowing his brains out all over the bathroom wall in Full Metal Jacket. It's not what I want and feel confident in assuming it's not what you want, either. But it is what it is and it is far too big for either of us to change it in the fundamental ways required to set things better, much less to proper rights. Because these things are beyond our effect, practically speaking, we must deal with that which we have before us. One can argue against reality all they want - it will change nothing. Not only are the tyrants on board with tyranny, most of the world's population is as well. Were it not so, the world would be different. It's not.

    I choose practicable solutions to the very real challenges that face us today. I can hope for and work toward more ideal arrangements for a future day, but I am not willing to ignore reality such that I expose my neck to the threats posed by those out there who would hurt me, given half an opportunity. Just because I choose this path, it does not follow that I find it anything better than the lesser evil. If all I have before me is a choice between evils, you bet your ass I am choosing the least of them.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  19. #196
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    we the people hold the right to set standards and conditions of entry.
    I know it seems semantic, but the argument for immigration quotas always comes down to group rights. Group rights don't exist.

    Nor do I want hordes of "refugees" pouring in from other lands, particularly such place where the cultures are anathema to that of this one.
    As noted many times before, America doesn't hold some monopoly on freedom. The whole reason you're so upset is that American freedom is deeply compromised, as you point out yourself, not by foreigners but by our ancestors, long-time citizens almost entirely of European descent. There's no way migrant Mexicans are going to vote us more efficiently into tyranny and socialism than white Republicans already have.

    It can be said that we are the holders of claim to this land.
    You're the holder of claim to your land. Nobody else's. Do you truly believe you have any claim to "public property" whatsoever? Public property is the domain of Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell. Pay your national park fee if you even want to walk on it. Pay for a license if you want to drive on it.

    But to sit idly and allow anyone with an ax to grind dance freely across the border of a land whose leaders are busily pissing off the rest of the world, much of which seeks to destroy us make no rational sense.
    How do you determine which ones have an axe to grind? Country of origin? Collectivism. Religion? Collectivism. Ethnicity? Collectivism. What books they checked out of the library? Collectivism. Collectivism is one of the things you eschewed in your list of tyrannical evils. You're ahead of most immigration hawks, who at some point start asking "What's so bad about collectivism?" You have the intellectual backing to see the fallacy.

    Someone, somewhere, $#@!ed us.
    Yes, it's the people who knew we were so afraid that we'd stub our toes that they took advantage of that fear to enslave us. Keep your eye on the ball. The Swamp are the people who actually have the capacity to close the borders. They are the ones who run the machine that wants to milk you and everybody you love dry.

    I choose practicable solutions to the very real challenges that face us today.
    Well, you've pretty much stated that you're willing to do so at the expense of my liberty. I'm sorry you feel that way.

    The eventual messy fall of every closed-border nation ever indicates that your (impracticable) solution isn't going to end well. The idea that public figures can be persuaded by "We the people" to do anything at all with the nation's resources is quixotic. The fact that we live in a geographic land mass that can't, with near-future technology, be truly closed to the outside stakes your position out not as realist, but idealist. And what ideal is it upholding?
    Partisan politics, misleading or emotional bill titles, and 4D chess theories are manifestations of the same lie—that the text of the Constitution, the text of legislation, and plain facts do not matter; what matters is what you want to believe. From this comes hypocrisy. And where hypocrisy thrives, virtue recedes. Without virtue, liberty dies. - Justin Amash, March 2018

  20. #197
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You are right about most issues but immigration is special since nobody's rights are involved, foreigners have no right to come here and individual citizen have no right to invite them here in violation of whatever rules the group makes, since a total ban doesn't violate anyone's rights it is within the discretion of the owners to enact if they so please.
    That assumes the very point in contention, i.e. that the group holds these collective property rights, which supersede ordinary property rights (which immigration restrictions obviously violate). You're free to assert that the people have these communal rights, of course, but you cannot (on penalty of intellectual dishonesty) claim that this is consistent with the liberal conception of property rights.

  21. #198
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    Then we agree, so what is your point?
    If you claim authority to tell me who I can and cannot employ and house in my home... then you purport to claim my property as yours.This is incompatible with property rights.

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  22. #199
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    That assumes the very point in contention, i.e. that the group holds these collective property rights, which supersede ordinary property rights (which immigration restrictions obviously violate). You're free to assert that the people have these communal rights, of course, but you cannot (on penalty of intellectual dishonesty) claim that this is consistent with the liberal conception of property rights.
    If the group exists it exists to hold a property right to it's territory, if it does indeed have a property right to the territory it is perfectly "liberal" for it to exercise it's rights.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #200
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    If the group exists it exists to hold a property right to it's territory, if it does indeed have a property right to the territory it is perfectly "liberal" for it to exercise it's rights.
    Equating possession and ownership is not only illiberal but also in conflict with your own nationalist theory of property.

    If one takes the underlined seriously, every state is justified to do whatever it likes: communist Russia, national socialist Germany, the US now.



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  25. #201
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Equating possession and ownership is not only illiberal but also in conflict with your own nationalist theory of property.

    If one takes the underlined seriously, every state is justified to do whatever it likes: communist Russia, national socialist Germany, the US now.
    No, because it only holds territorial rights not ordinary property rights that confer greater powers over the land in question, governments exist to serve the rights of their citizens and therefore they aren't allowed to violate them, the reason they have the right to ban immigration is that nobodies rights are violated thereby and the citizens are supposed to have recourse to change the policy if they don't like it. (you of course don't believe the last statement but in your system it is then the exclusive right of the monarch to decide whether to grow his herd through immigration or not)
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  26. #202
    Quote Originally Posted by undergroundrr View Post
    I know it seems semantic, but the argument for immigration quotas always comes down to group rights.
    How do you reason? I do not think that is so at all.

    [QUOTE] Group rights don't exist.[/quote[

    We agree.

    As noted many times before, America doesn't hold some monopoly on freedom.
    Nobody to my knowledge has suggest as much, nor has it anything relevant to do with the point.

    The whole reason you're so upset is that American freedom is deeply compromised, as you point out yourself, not by foreigners but by our ancestors, long-time citizens almost entirely of European descent.
    Here you are completely mistaken. For one thing, my being displeased with my violated freedoms is orthogonal to this point. It is irrelevant. People of European descent did what they did out of ignorance and lassitude, not out of open malice.

    There's no way migrant Mexicans are going to vote us more efficiently into tyranny and socialism than white Republicans already have.
    Dead wrong. Some Mexicans won't. Those are the ones I welcome here because they want to be Americans and not "Mexican-Americans". The rest would so very much do as you claim they would not. They say it openly and without equivocation and their numbers are legion. They hate white people, hate capitalism, hate America. They will tell you that to your face. As far as I am concerned, they pose a clear and present danger to my freedoms. I don't want to have to set up killing them en masse one day, nor am I in any way obliged to bear the risks of dying or being maimed in a war with the sorts of people who seek to take from me that to which they have no right.

    Letting such people in puts everyone's freedom's at risk. Therefore, every one of us holds valid interests in denying entry to the land anyone whose intentions are anything less than honorable.

    You're the holder of claim to your land. Nobody else's.
    Agreed, obviously, but the issue is not of one man laying claims to the lands of another, but of men coming together in the common interest of seeing after everybody's rights. It behooves me to hold an interest in your rights. It therefore behooves me to have your back in that regard because to preserve your right is to preserve my own. To allow into the land anyone who would see your rights violated in the general manner that those who would see America and it people destroyed would see, is to expose yourself as well as myself to the threats of an enemy. There is no justifiable reason to do this. Citing the rights of foreigners to enter without demonstrating their character is a grossly flawed argument because it implies that their right to enter the land freely supersedes our rights to best ensure that you do not come to do harm. That argument is not merely flawed, it is barking mad.

    Do you truly believe you have any claim to "public property" whatsoever? Public property is the domain of Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell. Pay your national park fee if you even want to walk on it. Pay for a license if you want to drive on it.
    Here you mix apples and oranges. You have switched gears from a normative argument to that which is positive. I am afraid this fails - it is a form of strawman. I am a Freeman, despite the fact that my rights are violated every day by some lowlife pig who cites non-law as the basis for doing so, which in his eyes means his acts of tyranny are just and proper. The positive reality does not negate normative truth. I am a Freeman even if Theye place me against a wall and shoot me dead or throw me into a cage. I waive nothing, nor do I concede. What ensues in that wake is on Themme, not me. Might does not make right, but only reality. That is why Theye have no authority, but only the gun. The two are by no means equivalent.


    How do you determine which ones have an axe to grind?
    Valid question, and a potentially very sticky wicket. The alternative, of course, is to allow free movement. In the context of maintaining what few freedoms left to us as a goal, that is not a viable option - not in the world as it is. This is plain reality speaking. We, the men of the world, have $#@!ed up so severely, we cannot at this time afford to live in an ideologically pure mode and expect to retain even these meager freedoms.

    Country of origin? Collectivism. Religion? Collectivism. Ethnicity? Collectivism. What books they checked out of the library? Collectivism. Collectivism is one of the things you eschewed in your list of tyrannical evils. You're ahead of most immigration hawks, who at some point start asking "What's so bad about collectivism?" You have the intellectual backing to see the fallacy.
    The error lies not with me, but you. What you term "collectivism" is nothing of the sort, but rather a statement based on a mean reality. As such, it is eminently valid. Our circumstance is such that we cannot assume the best in people as a general rule insofar as the topic at hand is concerned. Now, if you will raise the idea that picking and choosing can go awry for reasons such as ignorance or corruption, I will agree with you. We are in a bit of a catch-22 and it is at least partly our fault, but not entirely. People who, for example, subscribe to the tenets of fundamentalist Islam, cannot be trusted to come here and not pose threats to life, limb, and liberty.

    We're in a tough corner, I think you might agree. At this point, if we do not wish to expose ourselves to enemies who wish to bring harm, then we must filter. If you think we can let anyone come in as we please and not assume deep risk to our ways of life, you are deluding yourself.

    Yes, it's the people who knew we were so afraid that we'd stub our toes that they took advantage of that fear to enslave us. Keep your eye on the ball. The Swamp are the people who actually have the capacity to close the borders. They are the ones who run the machine that wants to milk you and everybody you love dry.
    This is very simplistic. I would call it true so far as it goes, but it leaves out enough that to discuss it all could easily occupy many very long posts.

    Well, you've pretty much stated that you're willing to do so at the expense of my liberty. I'm sorry you feel that way.
    I've done no such thing. That you interpret is so only reveals to me that you have missed something very fundamental in this exchange. I have no idea what it might be and cannot, therefore, correct your misapprehensions.

    The eventual messy fall of every closed-border nation ever indicates that your (impracticable) solution isn't going to end well.
    Nations have controlled their borders for an eon. They may not have done so in the precise same ways as we find today, but they also did not have to deal with today's population pressures, not to mention the widespread insanity that drives the life of the meaner.

    The idea that public figures can be persuaded by "We the people" to do anything at all with the nation's resources is quixotic. The fact that we live in a geographic land mass that can't, with near-future technology, be truly closed to the outside stakes your position out not as realist, but idealist. And what ideal is it upholding?
    Once again, you bring the conversation out of the normative and into the positive. That is not valid here.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  27. #203
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    If you claim authority to tell me who I can and cannot employ and house in my home... then you purport to claim my property as yours.This is incompatible with property rights.
    OK, I understand and still agree.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  28. #204
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    If you claim authority to tell me who I can and cannot employ and house in my home... then you purport to claim my property as yours.This is incompatible with property rights.
    But that is not what is being suggested here.

    I would add that, as with any other act, you have no right to employ or house someone who poses a threat to others. The wicket in all this is very sticky in terms of practical application, but the principles are not particularly difficult.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  29. #205
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    But that is not what is being suggested here.

    I would add that, as with any other act, you have no right to employ or house someone who poses a threat to others. The wicket in all this is very sticky in terms of practical application, but the principles are not particularly difficult.
    It's not that difficult. Is he aiding, abetting and sheltering a criminal fugitive, or a "potential" criminal fugitive whatever that means?
    Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,--
    Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
    Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
    ‫‬‫‬

  30. #206
    Quote Originally Posted by axiomata View Post
    It's not that difficult. Is he aiding, abetting and sheltering a criminal fugitive, or a "potential" criminal fugitive whatever that means?
    "Is he aiding, abetting and sheltering an enemy of liberty?" is the appropriate question.

    When dealing with allowing outsiders into our society practical difficulties force us to deal with the odds based on the group the would be immigrant comes from and since those odds are bad we can't let many in.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #207
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    "Is he aiding, abetting and sheltering an enemy of liberty?" is the appropriate question.

    When dealing with allowing outsiders into our society practical difficulties force us to deal with the odds based on the group the would be immigrant comes from and since those odds are bad we can't let many in.
    Pretty much the point I've been making, apparently to no good effect.

    If you want to let anyone in without question, then do it. But if and, more likely when, the $#@! hits the fan in the ways we've been seeing in Europe or worse, best hold your tongues because you'd been warned.

    Nations have controlled their borders since ancient times. The need for such control is well modeled and understood. Ignore that need at your peril. Being a proper land, a proper people, internally to a so-called "nation" is not compromised just because those people do not treat outsiders of unknown character and intent differently from "their own". That is where one of the great fallacies of the unlimitedly open borders contingent lies.

    I will repeat myself yet again: it is not the circumstance for which any freedom-loving individual wishes, but it is the dirty little necessity he recognizes as practically present in order to maintain the freedom he presumably enjoys. It is the generally $#@!ty behavior of people that necessitates this in the face of that desire to remain as one is.

    The open-borders contingent goes on and on about people's rights, yet ignores the rights of an indigenous people to be as they wish without external interferences beyond some threshold and nature. Their objection to a population reserving the right to determine who from the "outside" may enter the admittedly arbitrary borders of their lands is in principle no different from denying a man the right to deny entry of another onto his individually held property. That bright line in the sand that speaks to the borders of control over real property must be drawn somewhere, as a practical matter because that is how we have come to arrange the world. It may be a good way, or not - who can really say in any absolute manner? I've yet to turn my analytic eyes toward the issue.

    That is how things are and I do not see anything immediately wrong with it. It is an expression of property rights. That expression does indeed become distorted in the face of typical arrangements with respect to borders and that which underlies the methods of their establishment and maintenance, namely "government". Boo-hiss and shame on us, the race of men for having allowed this to come to pass and for allowing it to remain. However, that which is required to eliminate those vile influences is nowhere in evidence as a matter of statistical observation. The requirement involves a quantum alteration of perception and attitude that the meaner does not possess, has no intention of possessing, and will come to possess only after long years of education, cajoling, and piecemeal force by small slices in the right direction... that, or very bloody revolution that would likely leave millions dead in its wake and, without a plan for life moving forward, end up in just another flavor of tyranny. And here I now speak not just of America and Americans, but of that critical global mass of humanity. So long as any materially powerful nation remains in the camp of those who would spread their tyrannies beyond their own borders, the rest are forced into the choice of risking subsumption by that external influence ( think "domino theory" ), or taking material measures such that their lands become notably less attractive to potential looters and invaders. This has been humanity's material Empire truth since forever and beyond.

    The reality here is that a nation cannot act as if in vacuo in such matters. Consider tiny Israel, forgetting the right or wrong of their very existence. Israel is a FACT. They are there, amid an ocean of six hundred million Arabs, most of whom would love to see them driven into the sea. What's good for the goose must perforce be good for the gander, meaning that if America is in principle obliged to fling wide its doors to anyone desiring to come in, then so it Israel. Now consider the likely results of that smaller-than-New-Jersey nation doing so. How long does anyone think they would last? A generation? Maybe, but by no means certainly. The so-called "Palestinians" claiming a right to return would by themselves constitute a population so large as to swamp the current residents of that place. It would not stop there because there are active elements seeking Israels elimination through sublimation, resulting in more and more people going. Israel has striven to green their deserts in the midst of the barrenness of the nations surrounding. There need be no conspiracies afoot to see that there would be people from the outside looking to get a chunk of that pie. How many could Israel absorb in a short period without falling into wrack and ruin? Being so small, the clear answer is "not many" because contrary to the assumptions of the open borders contingent, not everyone coming in would be industrious and honest. This is the same naivete the progressives display - simplistic thinking in a complicated world.

    To demand America open itself indiscriminately to outsiders is to demand the precise same of every other nation on the planet. How many of those do we think are stupid enough, excepting most of western Europe, are going to jump on that bandwagon? How many relatively wealthy nations do we think are going to do so with their poor and possibly covetous neighbors? How dare anyone demand any people set themselves up for disruption under the fallaciously cited calls for "freedom!". So sorry, but that is pure insanity. People separate themselves into groups and perceive separate identities a matters of commonly observable FACT. We see it every day and it is a powerful midbrain force that drives us to it. Suggesting we are somehow failing because of this is the sheerest stupidity imaginable. We have been engineered as we are for what I believe to be eminently valid practical reasons. To demand the people of the world abandon their wired-in programming is as non-credible as denying their property rights.

    A nation asserting its borders is nothing more or less than the people therein asserting their property rights, their CLAIMS to a region of the world. As such, they hold the right to say yea or nay to entry by those outside for all the reasons cited, as well as those remaining unstated.

    One may choose to live in a normative fantasy, but he may not demand that the rest follow suit. People like to live. They generally like the cultures in which they live... enough, otherwise they would change them. They are under no obligation in principle or practice to expose themselves to the risks of invasion, whether cultural, military, economic, or otherwise political. For any self-proclaiming lover of liberty to assert otherwise flies in the face of those proclamations, thereby assassinating his own credibility.

    There is something smacking of paradox in all this. If a people are free to live as they choose and they choose not to be free...

    The position of the open-borders contingent, if it is to be credible, must be consistent in all cases. If they demand X of America, they are obliged by reason to demand the same of the rest of the nations. In so doing they are attempting to impose their wills upon those who have no desire to live as such. This is what American foreign policy has been doing for thirty years at the very least, and in fact quite longer. We will export freedom, free market capitalism, and so forth to the lowly dink-holes of the middle east, for example. How well has that worked out for us? On 9/12/01, nearly all the world was with us. Now, most of it is at best leery of us. So much for the presumed good intentions of American leadership.

    This is a silly debate in the face of the obviousness of the real context in which it is occurring. It is not unlike being on the Titanic after the collision and debating, as she goes down by the bow, whether we should get into the life boats. No, we don't WANT to get in - we WANT to remain in our oaken state rooms, drinking champagne and having tons of porno-grade sex. Unfortunately, the ship is sinking in twelve thousand feet of icy water in the pitch of night. So we have a choice: stay drinking and fornicating unto Davey Jone's locker, or get in the damned life boat. Choice is ours and, IMO, pretty clear.
    Last edited by osan; 02-14-2018 at 09:03 AM.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  32. #208
    Quote Originally Posted by axiomata View Post
    It's not that difficult. Is he aiding, abetting and sheltering a criminal fugitive, or a "potential" criminal fugitive whatever that means?
    1) there is no such thing as a "potential criminal"2) without a victim there is no crime3) anyone accused of crime for which there is no victim... is themselves a victim of mob violence4) I stand with individuals, in defiance of edicts from mobs, mafias, and states

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...




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  34. #209
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    1) there is no such thing as a "potential criminal"2) without a victim there is no crime3) anyone accused of crime for which there is no victim... is themselves a victim of mob violence4) I stand with individuals, in defiance of edicts from mobs, mafias, and states

    This is a bit naive. If someone is standing in an alley between you and escape with a knife in their hand and an evil glint in the eye, are you seriously going to tell me that they do not present an apparent potential as an enemy? Would you tell me that you would disregard them as such and take no measure to handle the situation? If so, then I'd say you need to rethink a few things. Were someone doing that to me, they risk getting shot in short order, end of story. I have not the resources to risk the brands of potential destruction such people pose. If he is not a threat, onus rests with him not to appear as one.

    Your normative ideal is commendable, and I share it with you completely. In the real world, things are a bit different. When I was majoring in physics, back in the stone age, we were instructed to make calculations disregarding effects of friction, wind resistance, and so forth. We were allowed the luxury and comfort of the ideal world such that calculating a firing solution for a hypothetical canon against a hypothetical target as a related-rates problem was comparatively very simple and easy. In the real world, ordnance engineers and soldiers must compensate for these externalities when placing bang precisely on target is the goal.

    People claiming to want liberty sorely need to come to the real world, accept it as that which is, and proceed accordingly. All else equal, it is almost certain that nobody in these forums will live to see ideal freedom. That is not necessarily bad news, but it is a possibility that must be accepted if lesser goods are to be reasonably expected in time.

    Lefties are eminently practical. Freedom lovers are not - they live in a fantasy world. Nothing wrong with ideals. I have mine, but I am learning to get real and accept that my autodiathist world will almost certainly not become real in the short remains of my lifetime. The best for which I can reasonably hope at this time is a change in the better direction. It is not even remotely possible to affect overnight changes at so fundamental a level as some people think they want. The average man cannot or will not absorb and adapt to it without violence and we all should know how well violent events tend to work out. History demonstrates this well.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  35. #210
    Should socialist American citizens own guns?
    Partisan politics, misleading or emotional bill titles, and 4D chess theories are manifestations of the same lie—that the text of the Constitution, the text of legislation, and plain facts do not matter; what matters is what you want to believe. From this comes hypocrisy. And where hypocrisy thrives, virtue recedes. Without virtue, liberty dies. - Justin Amash, March 2018

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