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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
So, continuing my charming conversation with myself, I will expand on this. In what sense was migration into the USA restricted in the 1800s?
I will give you a hint: it was the same sense in which migration into Every Place Everywhere was restricted in the Every Century Ever.
Namely: By Reality!
In the past, it was extremely difficult to move your residence from one country to another. Abraham did not leave Ur lightly.
So, reality itself kept migration to a fairly low level, through such policy measures as:
Strong human emotional need to stay in your community, with your people whom you know and love
Even stronger survival need to stay put in said community
General impoverishment and lack of resources
Lack of transportation technology
Lack of disposable income to avail yourself of even what transportation tech did exist
Lack of any crazy, decadent people who are going to be at all welcoming to strangers, much less dole out their treasure to you
And last but not least: LARGE ATLANTIC OCEANS
The point is thus:
You were using Western history to say that the norm was unrestricted migration, and that worked great (see: all the great stuff Western Civilization has done).
I am saying: OK, there was less legislation regarding immigration, but that does not mean there was more immigration. Investigating, we find there was, in fact, a great, great deal less immigration going on.
It just wasn't a problem. No issue.
Half the population of olde Burgundy would never have considered mass-transplanting themselves to olde Cambria, as half of Syria seems to have plunked comfy in Europe.
Would never, that is, unless it was fertile, desirable land and they were invaders.
You see, "mass migration" has existed in history -- tiny fractions of the "mass" and over much longer periods of time than what's going on now in the USA, but it existed -- but it was seen clearly as something done to the advantage of invaders, because they could, and you couldn't stop them, not something done for the moral or economic benefit of you, the invadee. The invader gets to spread and thrive, and the invadee gets wiped out. They die.
I am saying that nothing is different today. The laws of physics and reality are still the same. Only one body can occupy a given space at a given time. It could be you, and your family. It could be some other group. You decide.
So seriously: which would you prefer?
someone bailed out Helmuth .
Do something Danke
I prefer Liberty! How about that? Is that allowed? I prefer treating all men with dignity and according all men their equal, God-given rights. Not all this brain-dead, chest-thumping "Us vs. Them" mentality that you're promoting.
What happened to you, New Helmuth? How could you forget about liberty and become a barbarian? I love liberty with all my heart. Indeed, it is my only political value. I don't think anything could happen to me that would change that, that would make me betray freedom, which I hold so dear. Nay, never! I am an Eternal Warrior for FREEDOM!
You have betrayed the cause of liberty! You have betrayed me, your past self!
Is this really the future I have to look forward to? How could this have happened?
Say it isn't so!
Well, Old Helmuth, here's the thing: maybe it didn't happen. See, you, like most political thinkers, are far too emotionally-driven for your own good. You cripple your ability to come to good conclusions if you let your emotions climb up out of the back seat and grab the steering wheel. So anyway, you got so triggered you have jumped to this massive, existential conclusion about me and how evil I am without actually having sufficient facts to back it up.
Did I say I had abandoned my love of liberty?
Did I myself say that I had become a brain-dead chest-thumper?
No, I did not say these things. In point of fact I have had no zippyjuanesque brain damaging injury, I am today significantly smarter than I was when I was you, and I still possess a strong emotional commitment to liberty.
So, back to my question that you were trying to distract yourself from: If you had to choose whether your land would be for your family, or for some other family, which would you choose?
____________
An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)
The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)
Uhh, OK....Well, Old Helmuth, here's the thing: maybe it didn't happen.
I don't know who that is.In point of fact I have had no zippyjuanesque brain damaging injury,
Well, I'm glad to hear you're still such a genius and Number 1 Fanboy of Liberty, though I don't see how that could be true, if you're now for restricting people's freedom of motion.I am today significantly smarter than I was when I was you, and I still possess a strong emotional commitment to liberty.
It's not a valid question. Under a free market there is enough bounty for everyone to go around. There is plenty of raw "space" in the USA for anyone who might want to come -- acres apon acres of empty land. And we could always build vertical, too. With the incredible prosperity that would be unleashed under anarchocapitalism, there's just no practical limit!So, back to my question that you were trying to distract yourself from: If you had to choose whether your land would be for your family, or for some other family, which would you choose?
Last edited by H_H; 02-22-2020 at 03:59 PM.
Count yourself lucky.
You are conflating two things: unfettered anarchocapitalism, and extreme levels of incoming human dross.
One can be in favor of one and not the other.
Anarchocapitalists, and libertarians in general, are often accused of being detached from any practical considerations of reality. I know this is not true of you, because I was you. So let's look at things practically. How could anarchocapitalism possibly be stable and workable? Ideology. The people in the ancap place need to overwhelmingly believe in it, and actively, vigilantly do things in order to prevent it from devolving into tyranny again (such as refuse to allow any protection agency significant market share, keeping the market fragmented and healthy, by everyone actively seeking out smaller companies to contract with and switching if their current one grows too big. Even more importantly, make it impossible for any intelligence/surveillance operations to be conducted, ever.).
So there's a practical human element needed. We could not just overnight implement ancap on the existing US population. It would not work, because they don't believe in it. The foundation of any large and advanced political system is essentially belief.
So you have to have the right people, because not just anyone will believe in ancap. Also, not all peoples are intellectually capable of implementing ancap. Blank-slatists are wrong.
Anyway, I'm going on and on and probably nobody cares. Let's sum this up and give the right answer.
Last edited by H_H; 02-22-2020 at 04:01 PM.
The point of a political system is to make a good life possible for you and your great-great-grandkids.
It is not any kind of ideological goal. Those are, in the end, properly analyzed, fake and retarded.
The sane goal is the good life. A country full of good, healthy people, achieving awesome, amazing things, and living meaningful lives. That is the goal.
Any ideological quality is a means to an end. Freedom is the goal? Freedom to do what? Would you be happy in a country with total "freedom" where everyone was using that freedom to do things you find horrible, disgusting, ugly, self-destructive, and stupid? No, that would be a dystopia. The underlying political structures don't really matter, what matters is the behavior of humans around you. We love liberty because we envision it leading to a bright, exciting future. If we envisioned it leading to an abyss with everyone bombed out on fentanyl, scratching in dirt with sticks, and engaging in mutually-voluntary cannibalism, we would not favor that.
The ideas are just a vehicle to get us to the reality to which we want to go.
Thus, the issue of immigration becomes easy to answer. We should do what would be best for creating a high-quality country where we can live good quality lives.
That clearly does not involve importing in floods of people from backwards, impoverished countries. These people have shown what they are capable of back in their home countries. That's what they can build. We don't want it? Don't let them in.
At the current time, for the US and the rest of the West, the thing that would make the most sense would be to just close the doors. No new immigration. Read my lips and all that. Just hit the pause button. There is no demonstrated benefit, instead tons of harm. So it's the most obvious thing in the world that we should stop hurting ourselves and our countries and our futures and just shut it down.
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
None would.
Unless they enjoy fentanyl and think it's a good thing, or dream of using ancient agricultural processes with heirloom seeds in wholesome organic farmsteads, or the gender unicorn has made them a cis-que'er-cannibalexual. And if so, it makes no difference to my point, just change the dystopia in order to fit their idea of ultimate misery.
No one will accept dystopia in exchange for getting their abstract ideology implemented.
No one.
Last edited by H_H; 02-22-2020 at 10:10 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
Is HH arguing with himself?
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