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Thread: Yes Rand Paul, there is an emergency at our border!

  1. #511
    Quote Originally Posted by Mini-Me View Post
    If we want any hope at all, we need to buy time. We need to buy time!
    This is the one thing I hate about the ideological purity tests that are a part of "libertarianism," and it's every bit as pie-in-the-sky as AOC's Green New Deal.

    We're quickly approaching the end game for the direction that this nation is heading, and we're losing. At some point, common sense needs to override philosophy so that we can put some points on the board. We absolutely cannot continue to import people from nations and cultures that do not share the same cultural and philosophical notions of liberty that we do and hope to ever get ahead.

    Liberty cannot exist without borders so long as it's surrounded by anti-liberty, external forces.
    "I shall bring justice to Westeros. Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. They have made my kingdom bleed, and I do not forget that."
    -Stannis Baratheon



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  3. #512
    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm View Post
    This is the one thing I hate about the ideological purity tests that are a part of "libertarianism," and it's every bit as pie-in-the-sky as AOC's Green New Deal.

    We're quickly approaching the end game for the direction that this nation is heading, and we're losing. At some point, common sense needs to override philosophy so that we can put some points on the board. We absolutely cannot continue to import people from nations and cultures that do not share the same cultural and philosophical notions of liberty that we do and hope to ever get ahead.

    Liberty cannot exist without borders so long as it's surrounded by anti-liberty, external forces.
    And it is as simple as that.

    +rep



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  5. #513
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    Yeah...be nice if our enemies believed that...but they don't.

  6. #514
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Yeah...be nice if our enemies believed that...but they don't.
    I fear that it's going to get really bad. The U.S. is balkanizing, and simply being white (especially male) is prima facie evidence of racism (racism being power + prejudice), and thus being unworthy of civility.
    "I shall bring justice to Westeros. Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. They have made my kingdom bleed, and I do not forget that."
    -Stannis Baratheon

  7. #515
    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm View Post
    I fear that it's going to get really bad. The U.S. is balkanizing, and simply being white (especially male) is prima facie evidence of racism (racism being power + prejudice), and thus being unworthy of civility.
    And that will be all that will be needed to be put on the New Jacobin's "list".

  8. #516
    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm View Post
    Voter and election fraud?
    Voter fraud at the local level should be addressed at the precincts, but it pales in comparison to voter fraud at the state level and higher, where candidates are "preselected", so to speak.

    Though local fraud does exist to some degree, it is another distraction from the bigger picture that most are not aware of.
    ____________

    An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)

    The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)

  9. #517
    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm View Post
    This is the one thing I hate about the ideological purity tests that are a part of "libertarianism," and it's every bit as pie-in-the-sky as AOC's Green New Deal.

    We're quickly approaching the end game for the direction that this nation is heading, and we're losing. At some point, common sense needs to override philosophy so that we can put some points on the board. We absolutely cannot continue to import people from nations and cultures that do not share the same cultural and philosophical notions of liberty that we do and hope to ever get ahead.

    Liberty cannot exist without borders so long as it's surrounded by anti-liberty, external forces.
    Indeed. I realized this morning that we are frighteningly similar to all of the people and politicians who endlessly defer any attempt to address the national debt and our unsustainable spending. Like us, many refuse to change course based on economic grounds like, "But that will put countless people out of work in South Carolina!" Like us, many refuse to change course based on perceived risks like, "But cutting military spending could make us vulnerable in ways X, Y, and Z!" Like us, many refuse to change course for self-assured moral reasons like, "But freezing Medicare/Medicaid spending would further strap poor and vulnerable people, so it's off the table!" What do any of them expect is going to happen when we don't change course, and the currency implodes? How dense could they be? Would the bleeding hearts rather see poor and vulnerable people living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland than compromise their moral absolutes?

    As libertarians we are perfectly adept at recognizing how the public and politicians are totally insane for maintaining an unwavering course toward inevitable destruction...and yet here we are doing the same thing on another issue, refusing to budge for moral reasons like all the people wringing their hands about Medicare/Medicaid cuts or freezes. What do we expect is going to happen if we continue our current insane course without taking any genuine risks to correct it? Or have we simply decided, as Swordsmyth argued in the post I originally responded to, that we'd rather live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland than compromise our moral absolutes?

    In perspective, it looks like we're more like our interminably dense political and ideological opponents than we'd like to think.
    Quote Originally Posted by President John F. Kennedy
    And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. That we are only 6% of the world's population, and that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94% of mankind. That we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.
    I need an education in US history, from the ground up. Can you help point me to a comprehensive, unbiased, scholarly resource?

  10. #518
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Yeah...be nice if our enemies believed that...but they don't.
    That's what I've been trying to tell you. Our real enemies have us fighting other groups of people instead of them. And they're using our fears against us. It takes men of strong resolve to see through their bull$#@! games.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  11. #519
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    That's what I've been trying to tell you. Our real enemies have us fighting other groups of people instead of them. And they're using our fears against us. It takes men of strong resolve to see through their bull$#@! games.
    I don't doubt your point.

    So, when the "fake enemies" pull a, figurative and literal, gun on me, what do I do?

    That's the point I'm trying to make.

    Our enemies may very well be "fake" in the sense that they are ginned up and fanned up by the powers that be above them.

    That does not negate the fact that they can do incredible, killing, genocidal damage in the meantime.

    See: Rwanda.
    Last edited by Anti Federalist; 03-08-2019 at 02:20 PM.

  12. #520
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    That's what I've been trying to tell you. Our real enemies have us fighting other groups of people instead of them. And they're using our fears against us. It takes men of strong resolve to see through their bull$#@! games.
    That is what they tell you since they want you to surrender the country to others. They use virtue signalling anti-government language to do it. I am no fan of big government but border and immigration controls are needed to stop that from happening.

    If Trump's or Ron's 2008/2012 were implemented it would go along way to decelerating the problem.



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  14. #521
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    I don't doubt your point.

    So, when the "fake enemies" pull a, figurative and literal, gun on me, what do I do?

    That's the point I'm trying to make.

    Our enemies may very well be "fake" in the sense that they are ginned up and fanned up by the powers that be above them.

    That does not negate the fact that they can do incredible, killing, genocidal damage in the meantime.

    See: Rwanda.
    Don't you see, though? (I wouldn't say "fake" more like "pawns") But those people feel the exact same threat from you. Or at least your "group". Our real enemies are fanning you just as hard as they're fanning them. Hell, this whole thread has been a fanning.

    And yes, that fanning does serious genocidal damage. But the remedy to that is NOT to allow the fanning to continue! A fire burns fastest that which labors it least. It feels good to the fire within us to continually add more fuel. But if you want to control that fire you have to direct it at the ones directing it - not the pawns. And you certainly don't want to become a pawn! Especially, because of a fear they've implanted in you. Remember who caused this problem to begin with.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  15. #522
    Government has caused every problem, restricted liberty, raised taxes, destroyed the dollar...

    But THIS time, they are going to help us reverse everything that they have done, with one miraculous solution - “The Wall”.

    I am so excited! And it’s happening in my lifetime! I can’t wait to tell my grandkids that MY generation made history!


    Who needs Ron Paul, the gop has all the answers!
    Last edited by PAF; 03-08-2019 at 03:18 PM.
    ____________

    An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)

    The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)

  16. #523
    Quote Originally Posted by PAF View Post
    Government has caused every problem, restricted liberty, raised taxes, destroyed the dollar...

    But THIS time, they are going to help us reverse everything that they have done, with one miraculous solution - “The Wall”.

    I am so excited! And it’s happening in my lifetime! I can’t wait to tell my grandkids that MY generation made history!


    Who needs Ron Paul, the gop has all the answers!
    I know that if you're going to put out a fire, you have to aim for the base of the problem. I was a prodigy. I learned that one young.

    In this case, the problem, without an iota of doubt... is government.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  17. #524
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    I know that if you're going to put out a fire, you have to aim for the base of the problem. I was a prodigy. I learned that one young.

    In this case, the problem, without an iota of doubt... is government.
    Oh, and I should add... It's not that there's not enough government... or they're not doing it the right way... it's just that there's too much of it. Problems will always arise in any endeavor that has too much governance.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  18. #525
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    I know that if you're going to put out a fire, you have to aim for the base of the problem. I was a prodigy. I learned that one young.

    In this case, the problem, without an iota of doubt... is government.

    Com’on, let’s give government just one more chance. I am certain that they have our best interest at heart - this time.

    Whatdya say, lose a few more rights, spend just a little more for a very good cause... I can just feel that freedom right around corner!

    Plus, everybody says libertarian ideas are hog-wash, don’t you want to be on the “winning team”?
    ____________

    An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)

    The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)

  19. #526
    Quote Originally Posted by kahless View Post
    That is what they tell you since they want you to surrender the country to others. They use virtue signalling anti-government language to do it. I am no fan of big government but border and immigration controls are needed to stop that from happening.

    If Trump's or Ron's 2008/2012 were implemented it would go along way to decelerating the problem.
    You don't get the point at all.

    Why are you yelling at us over an ineffective boondogwall that won't be built for decades instead of yelling at Trump for letting more legal immigrants in this year than ever before and creating refugees in Venezuela?

    You're being suckered. You're being played. You're being suckered and played. Both. And you're mad at us for not being fooled and helping you shoot yourself in the foot.
    Last edited by acptulsa; 03-08-2019 at 04:56 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  20. #527
    Quote Originally Posted by Mini-Me View Post
    I will break my four-year silence to comment on this thread, on page 17, ninja-style.

    Swordsmyth, you are painfully correct, and I would like to expand on this at length. For good or ill, libertarianism has created many of the most rigidly principled deontologists the world has ever seen this side of Immanuel Kant. We understand instrumental rationality enough to reason well about economic outcomes, but we tend to be epistemically rational to a fault about moral issues. I suspect some of us would literally rather die than inwardly or outwardly acknowledge or express support or tolerance for any policy that violates the non-aggression principle in any circumstance whatsoever.

    We're only human, so we understand it's forgivable to accidentally slip up in our real life interactions from time to time, but to accept or approve an instrumentally rational compromise on a moral issue is to reject the moral fabric at the core of our personal identities. Permitting any nuance on this matter or giving an inch invites chaos into our hearts and makes us theoretically vulnerable to arbitrarily oppressive statist thinking based on subjective value judgments.

    The pathological libertarian cannot tolerate such a collapse of moral universality. "Not even in the face of armageddon. Never compromise," as Rorschach from Watchmen would say regarding a different moral absolute ("evil must be punished"). I have now been a libertarian now for 11.5 years, and my pragmatic self-preservation instincts spend their full-time job holding my moral idealism from the cliffs of insanity. In 2016 it was just a given that nobody could convince me to vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump if they had a gun to my head, and I think I meant it literally. I may still feel the same, and this is just a weak no-brainer starting point as far as many libertarians are concerned. Most morally self-conscious people have lines they simply will not cross, but as libertarians ours tend to be far more restrictive, especially in the political sphere.

    The vast majority of the time, our consequentialist viewpoints merely reinforce our moral certitude. After all, a society that broadly adopted libertarian deontological ethics would maximize real-world utility in a way that a cacophany of 300 million screeching utilitarian voices simply never could. (They would disagree, but that's beside the point.) Directly pursuing utilitarianism generally just leads to a chaotic war of all against all, because everyone has different utility functions, most are poorly calibrated, and most are more instrumentally rational than epistemically rational to begin with (that is, most people are both short-sighted and self-centered). Libertarians are often criticized for sharing utopian thinking with communists, but this is a misconception: Unlike the ever-tweaking utopian statists, our general viewpoint is more that principled libertarian solutions are "as close" to a panacea for most socioeconomic problems as a succinct set of rules could ever get, where all but the most exceptional deviations would cause more problems than they solve. In other words, we don't want to undermine a system that works in 99% of cases to accommodate the exceptional 1% cases. We're willing to leave those to chance or charity or even accept a 1% failure rate, rather than risk tearing everything down in pursuit of that utopian 100%.

    In general, our economic and social views align so nicely with our deontological ethics that we rarely have to question whether the non-aggression principle should be our categorical imperative, or if we care more about real-world outcomes. It rarely matters whether we rejected the gun in the room before or after we built our mental model of consequences; they have become deeply intertwined. We have to examine which one is more important so infrequently that I think most of us eventually subconsciously convince ourselves that no exceptional situations even exist. It's a comforting thought. We all recognize that any state action disturbs whatever the nonviolent path of least resistance would have been, and the effect generally (always?) has negative consequences that exceed the benefit and necessitate further tweaking to mitigate. Sometimes this opens the door to possible nightmare futures, like the idea of Trump's wall being used to keep us in, as the Berlin Wall was used to keep East Germans under Communist control. Why bother quantifying this risk next to the cultural and political risks of uncontrolled or excessive immigration? If we turn our moral principles into absolutes we'll at least dodge the risk of corruption, and we can always find consequentialist rationalizations that assure us uncontrolled immigration is more of an economic benefit than a political danger.

    It is in this way, that we become deeply pathological and, I think, a danger to ourselves. In my heart of hearts I want to be an anarchist, but I've never been able to convince myself that such a system would be predictably stable and avoid catastrophic perverse incentives in practice. Neither have I been able to convince myself that I shouldn't care about the consequences anyway on moral grounds, because unconditionally upholding the NAP is the greatest possible moral good. It seems my commitment to deontological ethics is not absolute, or perhaps, that I have misidentified the precise deontological principles that should be my true categorical imperative. Maybe the NAP is a crude first-order approximation of a more accurate and nuanced universal moral principle, which takes a broader view of self-defense than I can narrowly articulate. I'd imagine that true moral principles are what they are, regardless of how easy or difficult it might be to twist their linguistic expression into a dangerously contradictory meaning. Universal laws are normally parsimonious, but on occasion they take labrynthine twists.

    In any case, I never never been able to convince myself that American culture can survive uncontrolled immigration, or that the future of liberty can survive the death of American culture, or that such an outcome is acceptable. I believe the immigration issue is an actual exception where strict adherence to the NAP is at stark odds with our goal to see real-world outcomes produce more liberty. ("GASP! TRAITOR!")

    The biggest reason has little to do with economics and everything to do with American culture and politics. Culture matters, and as Sarah Hoyt (a conservative blogger I mostly enjoy) argues here, it is more than tasty food, fancy attire, and festival days. Those are just the superficial elements. The core of culture, which multiculturalist indoctrination has always obscured (on purpose I believe), encapsulates our deeply ingrained attitudes about how human beings should interact with each other:
    • The structure of government, role of executive power, role of the legislature, principles of jurisprudence and common law, etc.
    • The role of government in society
    • The role of religion in government, and vice versa
    • The acceptable uses of violence or coercion to enforce social or economic norms
    • The definition and role of property in society
    • The rights of individuals and their responsibilities to each other, their communities, and their countries
    • Views on education, language, fatherhood, motherhood, and family, and on what the culture should encourage and discourage
    • Views on how to handle disagreement, offensive or hurtful speech, etc.
    • Morality: What is a virtue, and what is a vice? How should morality be enforced?


    The power elite understand this in a way most of their followers do not: Culture matters, and they have worked long and hard to make Americans forget ours, so they could supplant it. How many times have you heard a leftist repeat the clueless sentiment, "America has no real culture, unlike all the other countries?" It becomes more true every day as we become more polarized and divided, but it was never true in the way they speak it. America has its skeletons, and it has become frighteningly corrupt and imperialistic, but what legitimate success it did attain -- greater than probably any other country in history -- it attained as a function of culture, most of it good. Our culture is not McDonald's, barbecue, and American football. The British common law system, Enlightenment ideals of individual rights and property ownership, Protestant work ethic, entrepreneurial spirit, and rugged individualism formed the backbone of the culture that built this country. The flame of liberty still survives in the remnant, but its ideological enemies are trying to extinguish it using every means at their disposal, and the immigration system is on the list.

    Culture is not a hat that a person can swap on a whim. It forms the basis of a person's worldview, and how they interact with the world around them. If a handful of open-minded immigrants from a radically different and incompatible culture move to America to seek a better life, their cultural immersion will make them Americans before long. They won't just see that we live better than people in the countries they came from. They will see WHY. As they assimilate, they will come to understand our success as the direct consequence of our cultural differences (petrodollar hegemony notwithstanding), and they will gradually adopt our ways of thinking. However, if an enormous number of immigrants from a radically different and incompatible culture move to America to seek a better life, they will remain too segregated to assimilate. Instead of adopting traditional American values, they may see our success as mere turn of fate, and try to "culturally enrich" us with the sociopolitical attitudes that dominated their countries of origin. Worse, confronted with the leftist ideology that our success came from "stealing their resources," many will see no reason to adopt our culture or become American. Instead, they may instead agitate to "reclaim" what they're told was theirs, as "La Raza" -- "The Race" -- they will try to "reclaim" what they're told was theirs. Aztlan indeed.

    Sure, the Cloward-Piven strategy to overburden the welfare state with immigrants is also at play, and the open borders libertarians have a valid point that it wouldn't be a problem if we simply eliminated welfare. That's all well and good, but that's a GOAL, not a strategy. The question is, how do we actually get there? We can't just snap our fingers and do it! Ron Paul supporters have been trying for 12 (or 30 in some cases), and libertarians in general have been trying for decades longer than that. In all that time, we've consistently lost more ground than we've gained. The key point to understand here is simple:

    We are running out of time.

    We don't have another 47 years to waste sparring each other as the Libertarian Party has done. We may not even have another 12 years to waste, as we here on this site have done, before it's too late. It may already be too late; many of us here argued the same a decade ago. What I think many people fail to understand is that it's not just going to be too late for the US government to turn around. It's going to be too late for American culture to survive, and if American culture dies, so does every link the average person has had or will ever have, to libertarianism or even liberty in general. If you think the gulf between you and the average American is too wide to bridge today, you have no idea how bad it could get.

    Too many on the left are indoctrinated with Cultural Marxism, call-out culture, identity politics, and the virtue of dogpiling and personally destroying anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest. Too many on the right are indoctrinated with neoconservative imperialism. As grassroots conservatives and Trump supporters are mercilessly evicted from the public square by identitarian obsessives, they are becoming vulnerable to fascist and white nationalist extremes in their desperation to stop the next Bolshevik revolution.

    At this point, spreading the light of pure libertarianism to the average American is already like proselytizing for a strange alien religion with orange and blue morality in an unknown and unpleasant-sounding language, with vaguely threatening hand gestures. Our education strategy thus far has been, "Let's start with Libertarianism 710 with Ron Paul and proceed to Libertarianism 896 with Walter Block." Our audience is not remotely ready for that yet. We need to focus on the preschool basics here like "Stop stabbing each other with scissors," because that's where everywhere else is at. We cannot achieve a future of liberty without first restoring or reinvigorating latent respect for American culture, and our window of opportunity grows shorter every day, and with every migrant caravan.

    Traditional American principles lose more mindshare every year, and a significant contributor includes immigration from culturally opposed countries at a rate that exceeds our ability to culturally assimilate the immigrants. Many on this forum seem to argue, "Our fellow Americans are doing plenty well throwing away their own culture anyway." That may be true, but this is an obfuscating rationalization for inaction, not a mitigating factor. Bringing up a second problem does not make the first one go away. Both problems reinforce each other.

    If we want any hope at all, we need to buy time. We need to buy time!

    I constantly read posts from fellow libertarians CaptUSA, acptulsa, Ender, PAF, SuperfluousMan, etc. scolding the libertarian-leaning conservatives like Swordsmyth and kahless about how the CORRECT approach is to "Just eliminate the welfare system." OH, WOW, WHAT AN INSIGHT! We could just eliminate the welfare system, and it won't be overburdened anymore! Holy cow, why didn't I think of that sooner? It's not like we've been trying to do that already for decades with only negative results to show for it, right?

    As I said above, eliminating welfare is a goal, a destination, not a strategy. If we could do that, we'd have already won. That's probably the absolute last pillar of runaway statism that will ever fall, so how do we expect to get there? It's not even a "Plan A," and if our actual "Plan A" is "Just educate people," we've been doing that one long enough to estimate its time to success as well: At the current rate it will take roughly infinite eons, although I suppose we could more precisely describe it with a negative number of years that represents our opposite-pointing velocity vector.

    Lately it feels like we're all on a ship headed for Liberty Island. We've been pointing our sails toward Liberty Island for literally decades, but it's still nowhere in sight, and all of the navigational signs indicate the wind has been pushing us backwards for quite some time. We're probably leagues farther from our destination than we started. Meanwhile, the creaky wooden ship is riddled with holes, and it's taking on water fast. Some of the uncultured pirates aboard start saying,
    "Hey, there's a hole, and we're taking on water! Help me plug this up!"
    Our more astute philosophers say,
    "Wait! Don't touch it! You might make it worse! Just...just...just go to Liberty Island instead! That's what we need to focus on, going to Liberty Island. Just go there! That's the solution to our problem."
    The pirates shout, panicked, "But no, seriously! We are going backwards and taking on water! There's no telling how long it will take to get to Liberty Island, but I can guarantee we'd all be dead before we get there if we don't stop the flooding! Why don't you help me plug up this hole?"
    The great philosophers reply in their wisdom, "What's the point in plugging that hole? There are plenty of other holes anyway. Put that hammer down before you hurt yourself, and let's just go to Liberty Island instead!"

    If "just educate people" is our "Plan A," and it appears like it will take literally forever, it seems like we have no choice but to support some "Plan B" which will help buy us more time (hopefully a lot). That's especially true when the bigger problem involves the culture shifting away from us in the first place. Slowing or stopping the deliberate dilution of American culture via heterodox immigration would give us at least a little bit of the breathing room we need, and we need every bit of it that we can get.

    As it stands, any kind of border control requires one or both of these two things:
    1. Establish and maintain control of border ingress (if not egress)
    2. Deport illegal aliens already in the United States


    Of the two options, method '1' is far superior. Deportations are horribly inhumane practices that destroy people's lives, and they provide a continued pretext for an ever-increasing police state and surveillance dragnet, combined with an enormous budget for the predictably ineffective results. No, thank you.

    In contrast, tightening the border via almost any mechanism (wall, alert sensors, minutemen...) is far more humane, and putting a moratorium on unskilled immigration wouldn't hurt. Side note: Like virtually everyone else here, I vehemently oppose the 100 mile Constitution-free zone, etc. Acting as though reluctant border control supporters on Ron Paul Forums believe in a total police state is shamefully disingenuous. (If you dare accuse me of this, I will tell your mother, and you will be in so much trouble.)

    As it stands, the conservatives and Trumpettes have presented us with a possible "Plan B" that could buy us more time. They're advocating for a wall, which is arguably the worst version of approach '1'. They've even already backed themselves into a corner where the stupid thing will only cover a fraction of the border and still costs $5 billion. As inane as that may sound, guess what? It still has far more traction than virtually anything we've ever done. I'm not going to lie here. I'm ambivalent about the wall. I'm willing to grudgingly accept it for the hope of a good outcome, but I don't want to want it, and I think the concerns that it could eventually be used to keep us in are valid. However, what other viable short/medium-term option do we have that doesn't involve continuing to drive off the same cliff?

    The United States is likely the world's last stand for liberty. Either we revive American culture, or libertarianism dies with it. We don't have the option to enact our magic libertarian dream plan either. That's not in the cards for us any time soon, because we're only bit players. That means we can either form a coalition with the [ostensibly] ruling party on an issue of potential joint interest, or we can pound sand and continue helplessly dying in our armchair perfectionist irrelevance. Those are our options this year, as I see it.

    If we support the wall as a dirty strategic compromise (by itself, without additional police state boondoggles attached), it might help us buy some of the time we need to turn things around. Our support might also be used to get a last-minute version with all sorts of horrifying extras attached as well. It could also just be immediately used to keep us in, and never benefit us one bit. Those are the risks we'd take by supporting it. They're terrible, but the option also provides a glimmer of hope that our time horizon may grow substantially. The alternative to taking a risk is to continue on the same path with the certainty that we'll go where we've been going.

    My idealistic side desperately wants to believe that principled libertarian advocacy alone will save us, but I don't see a viable strategy at this late stage, and at the end of the day, I want to live. I did not sign up for a suicide pact. I want my unborn children to grow up in a world where some Enlightenment-inspired civilization still exists, however imperfect it may be. Unless someone can suggest an actual alternative (and mutually exclusive) strategy that is within our power to realistically get us to Liberty Island alive in our allotted time under our present constraints, or that will buy us more time than the dunderheaded conservatives' idea, I have to side with the conservatives on the wall, notwithstanding my caveats.* I'll take that over impotently walking off into the ocean in despair, paralyzed by the NAP.

    *Caveat: For the record, I do agree with Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Andrew Napolitano on the specific topic of this thread (though not always as strongly): Unilaterally declaring a national emergency over the border situation appears to be an unconstitutional executive overreach at this point, regardless of my views on the wall itself. johnwk has made a rather admirable effort trying to justify it in terms of the actual law, but the stretches of reasoning involved seem to go into "living document" territory where I dare not tread.

    Even the federal power for Congress to control immigration itself rests on Constitutionally shaky ground. It seems to be a reasonable joint interpretation of the Commerce Clause, "repel invasions" clause, and "necessary and proper" clause, at least in such a manner that a wall along any state's border (for instance) could be construed as a reasonable exercise, given the appropriate magic words describing a congruent purpose. However, the wording does not explicitly encapsulate immigration. It's possible the power rightfully belongs to the states (and half-jokingly, perhaps the power of deportation from Texas to California still does), as it did in practice prior to the Page Act of 1875. Still, the Commerce Clause could have always interfered with the states in theory, and the Page Act made it a federal playground in practice anyway, for good or ill. At this point only strict constructionists would ever attack the Constitutionality of federal immigration control in good faith (even if leftists might attack it in bad faith, while interpreting the Constitution loosely everywhere else), so it is more the executive overreach that should concern us as a serious problem.

    The left, neoconservatives, and power elite routinely act on larger leaps, but our joint cause uniquely rejects that "might makes right" opportunism as a selling point. Sinking to the same level of lawlessness would therefore uniquely delegitimize that cause. No good-faith independent observer outside our libertarian sphere would ever predicate their respect and attention on our rigidly pure adherence to a deontological libertarian ideology that's alien to them to begin with, but we must at least respect the rule of law to effectively demonstrate moral superiority over arbitrary statism.

    Everyone here understands that we cannot permit a judge in North Carolina to invalidate voter-ratified Constitutional Amendments (or 18 months of legislation) for the entirely subjective rationale that a gerrymandered and therefore "invalid" legislature provided voters the option. For a similar reason, we cannot permit a President to subjectively redefine the contractual use of "invasion" in the Constitution to mean anything other than the plain meaning of the words to the two signing parties as the time of ratification.

    That is not to say Trump is strictly wrong to call it an invasion though: The leaders of the left are indeed systematically encouraging an excessive amount of immigration, on purpose, to reshape politics by transforming the country's demographics. This also ties in with the Cloward-Piven strategy of overwhelming taxpayer funded safety nets to foment socialist agitation, but I believe that is secondary. Either way, I'd colloquially call it a treason-assisted invasion in principle, if not according to the precise meanings of the words as understood by those who ratified the Constitution. The precise legalities must matter here though, because if they don't matter to us, they may never again matter to anyone...maybe for hundreds of years, or maybe forever.




    EPILOGUE:
    So, hi everyone, I'm still alive, and that's the giant rant I've been building up inside of me over months and months of reading these forums as a lurker. Also, the culture here these days is almost as shameful as the disgusting hatefest that's passing for politics in general. Please, be more charitable when judging each other's intentions.

    For instance, I'd like to discuss Swordsmyth for a moment (please forgive me for gossiping about you in the third person like you're not around to read it). Swordsmyth is far from a shill, and he's actually among the most intellectually honest posters on the whole board when it comes to tirelessly, patiently addressing his opponents' arguments in good faith. That doesn't mean he's always right; sometimes he misses subtleties, but he does try to address people's arguments directly the vast majority of the time (despite how jmdrake must have felt being misunderstood this whole thread). Sure, his obnoxious partisan language like "Demoncrats" is grating, childish, beneath his intellect, and counterproductively limits his reach. I also have no idea how he pays the bills with all his time on the forums, unless he's unemployed, which he claims not to be. (For that matter, I couldn't post half as much as the rest of you when I WAS unemployed...) However, I have seen far fewer signs of disingenuous squirreliness from him than I've seen from some others, who I'd "known" and respected for years. You can disagree with the guy without making it so personal all the time and treating him like some enemy infiltrator. He's not Walter Block (and neither am I), but can you honestly think of many other forums that better suit his (actual, non-straw-manned) views?

    On a similar note, the oft-repeated claim that the "right-wing trolls" have driven everyone away from RonPaulForums is a cynical and self-serving delusion from people whose IQ's are two-to-three standard deviations beyond the threshold for knowing better. Rand Paul's 2016 Presidential campaign was a bland disappointment that killed a lot of energy, and our lack of activity has nothing to do with one crowd driving another away. Our lack of activity comes from the site lacking a strong common purpose anymore. We aren't rallying behind any initiatives, any campaigns, or any flagbearers. The Ron Paul Liberty Report is good as usual, and I find it reasonable even in the rare case where my priority evaluation differs (immigration), but it doesn't inspire any kind of activity here. People just kind of linger to share outrage stories, yell at each other, work out their emotional need to feel involved, and pray that maybe someday we'll get the opportunity to do something important again. I hope we do, because the alternative is bleak.
    Thank you, that was a truly excellent post, I'm sure you have much better things to do in your life but it is a real loss to this site that you don't post more often.

    I have only two minor disagreements.

    1 The Constitution does make immigration a federal power:


    https://www.constitution.org/cmt/law_of_nations.htm

    The meaning of "Offenses against the Law of Nations"

    Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 10 of the Constitution for the United States delegates the power to Congress to "define and punish ... Offenses against the Law of Nations". It is important to understand what is and is not included in the term of art "law of nations", and not confuse it with "international law". They are not the same thing. The phrase "law of nations" is a direct translation of the Latin jus gentium, which means the underlying principles of right and justice among nations, and during the founding era was not considered the same as the "laws", that is, the body of treaties and conventions between nations, the jus inter gentes, which, combined with jus gentium, comprise the field of "international law". The distinction goes back to ancient Roman Law.

    Briefly, the Law of Nations at the point of ratification in 1788 included the following general elements, taken from Blackstone's Commentaries, and prosecution of those who might violate them:

    (1) No attacks on foreign nations, their citizens, or shipping, without either a declaration of war or letters of marque and reprisal.

    (2) Honoring of the flag of truce, peace treaties, and boundary treaties. No entry across national borders without permission of national authorities.

    (3) Protection of wrecked ships, their passengers and crew, and their cargo, from depredation by those who might find them.

    (4) Prosecution of piracy by whomever might be able to capture the pirates, even if those making the capture or their nations had not been victims.

    (5) Care and decent treatment of prisoners of war.

    (6) Protection of foreign embassies, ambassadors, and diplomats, and of foreign ships and their passengers, crew, and cargo while in domestic waters or in port.

    (7) Honoring of extradition treaties for criminals who committed crimes in a nation with whom one has such a treaty who escape to one's territory or are found on the high seas established with all nations in 1788,

    (8) Prohibition of enslavement of foreign nationals and international trading in slaves.


    Article 1

    Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight



    2 At some point we must be willing to break the rules to save American liberty culture, the rules are a tool to preserve liberty but if we allow our enemies to use them to tie our hands while they break them and finish us off for good then we have no hope.
    A revolution would most certainly be "breaking the rules" but almost all of us would admit that a revolution in support of liberty would be justified by now if we could manage one, therefore breaking the rules in a much smaller manner such as using the emergency powers that Congress (probably unconstitutionally) gave the President until such time that Congress retracts them (a good outcome in and of itself if you believe them to be unconstitutional) is justifiable as far as I am concerned.
    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

  21. #528
    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm View Post
    Liberty cannot exist without borders so long as it's surrounded by anti-liberty, external forces.
    In this case, what is the benefit of being on the side of internal anti-liberty forces vs. external anti-liberty forces?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.



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  23. #529
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    You don't get the point at all.

    Why are you yelling at us over an ineffective boondogwall that won't be built for decades instead of yelling at Trump for letting more legal immigrants in this year than ever before and creating refugees in Venezuela?

    You're being suckered. You're being played. You're being suckered and played. Both. And you're mad at us for not being fooled and helping you shoot yourself in the foot.
    I mean, this comes down to fear, right?? If you've succumbed to the fear, you probably want someone to save you. And you have no problem selling my grandkids further into debt slavery to do it. If this fear isn't your motivating factor, you're probably like, "WTF, $#@!s?!!"
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  24. #530
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    You don't get the point at all.

    Why are you yelling at us over an ineffective boondogwall that won't be built for decades instead of yelling at Trump for letting more legal immigrants in this year than ever before and creating refugees in Venezuela?

    You're being suckered. You're being played. You're being suckered and played. Both. And you're mad at us for not being fooled and helping you shoot yourself in the foot.
    A Rising Number Of Visa Applications To The US Are Getting Denied

    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

  25. #531
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    In this case, what is the benefit of being on the side of internal anti-liberty forces vs. external anti-liberty forces?
    The external forces are far more anti-liberty.
    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. #532
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    You don't get the point at all.

    Why are you yelling at us over an ineffective boondogwall that won't be built for decades instead of yelling at Trump for letting more legal immigrants in this year than ever before and creating refugees in Venezuela?

    You're being suckered. You're being played. You're being suckered and played. Both. And you're mad at us for not being fooled and helping you shoot yourself in the foot.
    I have no uppercase posts and you replied to me in each thread I created or participated in where I bashed Trump on "legal" immigration. At one point you told me "I told you so", yet that is inaccurate to since I said when he was running he cannot be trusted. I said better to go with the candidate that is telling you want you want to hear over the candidate that is saying the opposite. If that candidate is lying at least it moves the conversation - overton window in the right direction.

    So either you are being disingenuous, have really bad memory or are mixing me up with someone else.

  27. #533
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    Oh, and I should add... It's not that there's not enough government... or they're not doing it the right way... it's just that there's too much of it. Problems will always arise in any endeavor that has too much governance.
    You can't put out the base of the fire if it is surrounded by brush-fires that keep you away from it.
    And this problem stems from too much government in some areas and a deliberate absence of government in others.
    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

  28. #534
    Quote Originally Posted by kahless View Post
    I have no uppercase posts and you replied to me in each thread I created or participated in where I bashed Trump on "legal" immigration. At one point you told me "I told you so", yet that is inaccurate to since I said when he was running he cannot be trusted. I said better to go with the candidate that is telling you want you want to hear over the candidate that is saying the opposite. If that candidate is lying at least it moves the conversation - overton window in the right direction.

    So either you are being disingenuous, have really bad memory or are mixing me up with someone else.

    I started telling you people four years ago it would happen, and two years ago it was happening. And you all yelled at the top of your lungs so you couldn't hear, put other words in my mouth and convinced yourselves you heard them, and did everything in your power to convince yourselves that funny feeling around your backsides wasn't Trump $#@!ing you. Well, guess what?

    You say you aren't a woman. Well, when someone tells you the truth you bitch nonstop for days, and when someone tells you a lie you spread your cheeks. How does that make you not a woman?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  29. #535
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    Don't you see, though? (I wouldn't say "fake" more like "pawns") But those people feel the exact same threat from you. Or at least your "group". Our real enemies are fanning you just as hard as they're fanning them. Hell, this whole thread has been a fanning.

    And yes, that fanning does serious genocidal damage. But the remedy to that is NOT to allow the fanning to continue! A fire burns fastest that which labors it least. It feels good to the fire within us to continually add more fuel. But if you want to control that fire you have to direct it at the ones directing it - not the pawns. And you certainly don't want to become a pawn! Especially, because of a fear they've implanted in you. Remember who caused this problem to begin with.
    We have no way to stop the fanning, our real enemies will continue to fan our "fake enemies" no matter what we do.

    And they have bigger fans.
    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

  30. #536
    So apart from a fence/wall, what can be done to stop the flow of socialists coming into the country?

    I have yet to see any suggestions as to how it can be stopped.

    Congress isn't going to pass anything that would even slow it down, so what alternatives do we have?



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  32. #537
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    They caused totalitarianism.

    They didn't vote it in. They scared us, and we insisted on it.

    But it's still their fault.
    Yes they did vote it 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

  33. #538
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.3D View Post
    So apart from a fence/wall, what can be done to stop the flow of socialists coming into the country?

    I have yet to see any suggestions as to how it can be stopped.

    Congress isn't going to pass anything that would even slow it down, so what alternatives do we have?
    My preferred solution is to put the military on the border, Trump may end up having to do that with or without the wall.
    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

  34. #539
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You can't put out the base of the fire if it is surrounded by brush-fires that keep you away from it.
    And this problem stems from too much government in some areas and a deliberate absence of government in others.
    ^^ This folks. Let us fill all the holes in with more government now. That is what’s been missing!
    ____________

    An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)

    The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)

  35. #540
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    I started telling you people four years ago it would happen, and two years ago it was happening. And you all yelled at the top of your lungs so you couldn't hear, put other words in my mouth and convinced yourselves you heard them, and did everything in your power to convince yourselves that funny feeling around your backsides wasn't Trump $#@!ing you. Well, guess what?

    <vulgar lies snipped>
    You were yelling like a lunatic seeing what was not there in peoples posts that simply agreed with his policies during the campaign. Side by side comparisons with Ron's 2008/2012 platform on border security was posted showing the similarities yet you still blew a gasket despite everyone told you they do not know if he is scamming are not.

    He has followed through on quite a bit however he then walks it back and the gives lip service, then walks it back again with the threat of undoing some of his accomplishments. We do not know the full outcome but we do know it is still far better in some cases or status quo than we would have received with your Hillary Clinton.

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