EPISODE 36 - MUH BORDERS!!!

http://rebelwithacause.libsyn.com/episode-36-muh-borders

INTRODUCTION

This is The Rebel With a Cause, and I am glad to be back in the saddle! During my vacation, I did some thinking about where I wanted this podcast to go. I decided to change the format completely. I just want to offer a single topic, and present the best case for it. I also plan on these episodes to be longer, and that will mean there will be two episodes per month, instead of one short episode per week. At least until I start taking in support dollars so I can increase advertising of the podcast, and moving from a 5Gb per month account to a 10Gb per month account on Libsyn.
I spent last week in New Orleans for the 2018 Libertarian Party National Convention. I was one of the delegates for Louisiana. If you were there, our delegation was seated up front to the left of the stage. I wasn’t sure what to expect coming in, because I had only been a delegate to our state convention. Once everything was done, and we got through all the parliamentary mess, we fixed a few of the by-laws and some of the planks to the national platform.
Once I returned home, I found one plank in particular had rustled the jimmies of the pot smoking Republican crowd in the Libertarian Party. It was Plank 3.4. The text of the Plank was changed to clarify the Libertarian position on the border. This opened the flood gates of the “bordertarians”, and their collectivist view about strictly controlling the border. The rationale for changing this plank in particular makes sense as it did away with a redundancy in the language.

FIXING PLANK 3.4

The 2016 text read;
“We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders. However, we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.”
The 2018 text reads;
We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders.”
The rationale for changing this plank is not for the reason the bordertarians think. As of this plank’s adoption in 2008, the well-intentioned goal of the delegates in the final sentence was to provide for barring entry by individual known terrorists, known criminals, or persons known to carry infectious diseases into the United States. In recent years, rhetoric of security and safety risks has been used to justify categorical restrictions based on factors such as nationality and religion. The plank’s second sentence already leaves ample room for those differences of opinion as to what might constitute “reasonable constraints.”

BORDERTARIANS AND THEIR WILD ACCUSATIONS

I use the term “bordertarians” for good reason. They are usually minarchists who believe government would still be necessary for police, military, and courts. I find these people seem to be more concerned with the U.S.-Mexico border than they are about the Canadian border. I’ll let you decide why that is for yourself.
Most of these bordertarians have the belief that everyone coming here from the south because they are criminals. They will chant, “They entered illegally!”, or “They should do it the right way!”. They also will claim these people have every early 1900’s disease imaginable. Finally, they all are the boogey men known as “terrorist”. Of course, they reject being labeled as a group, but they are quick to label everyone entering the country illegally in these group terms.
The bordertarians also make every neo-con argument that these people are here to steal jobs, almost immediately get on welfare, and will vote for every Democrat and tax increase on the ticket. There is no proof that this is happening of course. This argument falls apart the moment you apply a little logic to it.
The most ridiculous argument I heard from this was from one particularly confused individual. His worry was that this will allow armed immigrants to show up while he’s on vacation and take over his trailer. I shit you not, he was emphatic that this would happen! I asked him what he would do about that, and he went into every revenge movie plot I’ve ever heard. This is a rape fantasy. He secretly wants to be the hero in his own movie. I can’t tell you how many news stories I read where a trailer out in the middle of the woods is commandeered by armed immigrants with 19 children all dying of consumption and yellow fever.

LIBERTARIAN RATIONALE

The Non-Aggression Principle is the idea that the initiation of force, fraud, or coercion is illegitimate. People crossing an imaginary line, trying to provide a better life are not aggressing upon you. Throughout all of human history prohibition never works. This is also true of trying to prohibit the travel of people.
We libertarians also view property rights in high regard. That is because of the concept of self-ownership. This makes every individual right a property right. There is also an economic fallacy that every Statist uses to strip your property rights from you called “The tragedy of the commons.” If everyone owns property, then no one truly owns it. The imaginary line called the border, fits this fallacy to a tee. If a property owner in that area of the border repels every potential trespasser that is fine. It keeps in line with the core principles of libertarian philosophy. There may be another property owner who welcomes people on their property, and that too jives with the philosophy. Both are correct.
Really, there is an argument that is missed in all of this talk about borders and “reasonable constraints”. That argument is against the government itself as it caused this mess in the first place. Legal immigration is difficult and expensive. That means the people coming here aren’t incentivized to do it, “legally”. Most of the people crossing the border are here to work the jobs that the government has priced out of the market with minimum wage laws. Government has also waged war, and interfering with the domestic affairs of countries in the middle east since the 1940’s. This is called blowback, and it is directly related to interventionism.

OUTRO

If you like what you are hearing and want to hear more of it, then please support the show! You can visit my Patreon page at https://patreon.com/rebelwithacause! I also post this show to Steemit. An upvote there will essentially pay me in the cryptocurrency Steem, and if you want you can send me Steem directly as well. I am also post to yours.org and Minds.com. Both of which are cryptocurrency based. I also accept PayPal if you must use fiat. I also have several coinbase wallets if you want to donate there, and the addresses are found in the show notes pages.
Liberty Sessions is currently on the back burner, but once we have a topic and a venue that info will be shared on the social media pages.
Until next time, keep your head down and rebel on!

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