On January 7, the Bangor Daily News reported that Maine Representative John Andrews had changed his registration from Libertarian to Republican. Also, at the same time, independent Representative Sophie Warren changed her registration from independent to Democratic. See this story. Both are running for re-election.
Many libertarians are doing the same thing, or will be soon if they have not already, and switching to the GOP. This seems like a natural step due to th# leftward drift of the el pee, while at the same time the GOP has moved to the right and become more libertarian on everything from mandates, vaccine passports, foreign policy, to building and finishing the wall, and saving taxpayers all the money that the criminal invading illegals are costing us each and every year.
Why is building a wall “libertarian”? Building the wall requires use of eminent domain, over the bitter opposition of many land-owners, especially in Texas.
John Andrews was never a libertarian, he joined the party solely because he had a spat with the Republican leadership, had no other party to join, and felt going independent wouldn’t “prove his point” enough. Apparently that disagreement has been smoothed over.
Blake Repubs are moving left. Economic protectionism (tariffs, restricted migration, etc.) are not capitalist positions; they’re collectivist … in fact Bernie Sanders agrees with a good chunk of Trumps economic positions (and Anti-immigration positions). Also when’s the last time a Republican has promoted privatizing social security or Medicare? In fact many Republicans have started proposing limited (capped) single payer with supplemental private insurance.
Bernie on open borders:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&v=7EOaLA_sX5I&feature=emb_title
The cure for the immigration “problem” is free trade: put foreigners to work for us in their own countries.
Even so, we DO need more immigrants than we are allowing in legally. Declining birth rates and retiring Boomers are creating a huge labor shortage in the US.
Richard Winger: “Why is building a wall “libertarian”? Building the wall requires use of eminent domain, over the bitter opposition of many land-owners, especially in Texas.”
Having a wall, or not having a wall, is not necessarily libertarian or not libertarian. This is something up to a property owner, or group of property owners.
Given that the state exists, and has a monopoly on the function of regulating border and migration across borders, whether or not there is a wall, or what the policy for entry across the borders is, is a political issue, and it will remain a political issue as long as the state exists.
Now as to whether or not eminent domain needs to be, or should be, used to build a border wall, I don’t know if it would be necessary to use this or not. The international border is under the control of the federal government. Are there property owners whose land goes right up to the border, and would the construction of a wall violate the property rights of any property owner, as in would it not be possible to build a wall without violating the property rights of people who own land next to the border? I don’t know. Eminent domain is obviously not preferable from a libertarian perspective, but we don’t live in a purist libertarian society, so the question is more of a constitutional issue than a libertarian issue. Would it be constitution to utilize eminent domain in order to build a border wall? I actually think that it would be, because it has to do with national defense (the US Constitution delegates the responsibility of regulating border crossings to the federal government under the “Law of Nations,” and the federal government is also tasked with “repelling invasions”), HOWEVER, just because it is constitutional, does not make eminent domain a wonderful thing. So, IF such a project were taken on, I would want there to be input from everyone who owns property on the border, if it is not possible to build a wall without treading onto their property. My guess is that a lot of these people would actually want the border wall. There have been many reports of crimes being committed by illegal aliens crossing onto privately held land on or near the border, so my guess is that a lot of these people would welcome a border wall. There could be others who would not though, so what could be done if there are any property owners who say that don’t want the border wall, and it would be impossible to build it without infringing on their property? Perhaps a fundraiser could be done, where people who want the border wall could donate money, and then buy these properties. Most people will sell if you wave enough money at them, and there are millions and millions of Americans who would likely donate to something like this. Now what if some people get a lot of money waved at them, and still don’t want to sell? I don’t think this is likely, but what if it happens? Perhaps a wall could be built around their property, or perhaps another arrangement could be made, like installing electronic equipment to monitor the border in those areas, and placing more border patrol agents in those areas. These areas could of course also be seized via eminent domain, and this would be constitutional, but I don’t like eminent domain, and I don’t think that it would be necessary if the options I suggested were implemented.
Now if anyone out there says that walls or fences or gates are not libertarian, well, lots of property owners have walls or gates or fences around homes or communities or businesses, and pretty much everyone has a door on their property, and almost all doors have locks on them. Walls and fences and gates and doors with locks aren’t going to disappear if we lived in an anarcho-capitalist society, if anything, there’d likely be more of them.
Also, in our present reality, lots of government buildings and groups of buildings have walls or fences or gates around them, and they also have lots of security. The White House has is walled and gated. Military bases have fences surrounding them, and the only people who can enter military bases are military personnel, their immediate family (spouse and children), or people who do work on the base in a non-military role. Military personnel can bring a guest onto the base, but they have to apply for a guest pass.
Ironically, current President, Joe Biden, owns a beach house in Delaware, and he is using taxpayer funds to build a wall around his beach house.
There are apparently at least 65 countries that have border walls. I know that the US government has actually utilized taxpayer funds which have gone toward building border walls for other countries. When Israel put up a border wall, it greatly reduced their number of illegal border crossings (if you talk to anyone who is Jewish who thinks that we should have open borders and unlimited, unrestricted immigration here, bring up Israel’s border and immigration policies to them, and ask why the hypocrisy). I heard that the same thing happened in Hungry.
When the Romans marched into present day England, they did not have enough troops, or supplies, to deal with the Scottish in the north, so they built a wall across England, called Hadrian’s Wall. The Chinese put up a The Great Wall of China to deal with the Mongolians and other groups who invaded them.
I don’t think that they ever put up a wall, but Spain got invaded by the Muslim Moors. The Spanish ended up having to go city by city, to “physically remove” the Moors from Spain. The French stopped the Muslim Moors at the French border, and fought them off. Does anybody think that Spain and France would have been better off if they had become Muslim Caliphates? How would it have impacted the rest of Europe had Spain and France been overwhelmed by Muslims? My bet is that Spain and France would have been much worse off, as would have other parts of Europe had they just sat back and decided to “embrace multi-culturalism” and allowed themselves to be flooded with a Muslim invasion.
The fear of having a border wall, is that it will lead to turning into something like North Korea, which is too far in the opposite direction of being cut off from the rest of the world, in my opinion. I can certainly understand this fear, but I don’t think that this has happened in every country that has a border wall, and I don’t think that it would happen here IF the American people remain armed, as in if we the people retain the right to keep and bear arms.
I think that a lot of the problems associated with immigration in the USA could be fixed if, 1) government welfare programs, and other taxpayer funded, were cut off for immigrants and their offspring, and, 2) it was made more difficult to become an American citizen, and if the original interpretation of Birthright Citizenship was implemented, to where it only applied to people whose parents were American citizens, so no more Anchor Babies.
If the two reforms I put in place were implemented, it may not be necessary to have border wall.
My point here was not so much to advocate for a border wall, but rather to indicate that the concept does not necessarily violate libertarian principles.
“Walter Ziobro on January 17, 2022 at 12:29 pm said:
The cure for the immigration ‘problem; is free trade: put foreigners to work for us in their own countries.”
Yes, it would be better if most of these people staid in the countries where they are from and worked to build them up, rather than coming here. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe pointed out in “The Case for Free Trade and Restricted Immigration”: https://mises.org/library/case-free-trade-and-restricted-immigration-0 .
“Even so, we DO need more immigrants than we are allowing in legally. Declining birth rates and retiring Boomers are creating a huge labor shortage in the US.”
The situation with declining birthrates has been done by design by the globalists. Part of reversing this trend would be reducing taxes and inflation, and also stop funding radical feminism, and change the divorce laws so that if a woman walks away from a marriage where she can’t prove physical abuse or infidelity from her spouse, she gets nothing, or very little. Stop the divorce rape of men. Some people really won’t like this next one, but making abortion illegal again could also bring the birthrate up.
I don’t expect all of the above to pass, and given the current political climate, none of it is likely to pass. Regardless of this, it would be preferable for the actual Americans who are already here, and have families that go back multiple generations in this country, to just have more children, than it is to bring in tons of foreigners, particularly ones from alien cultures.
“Blake on January 17, 2022 at 9:37 am said:
Many libertarians are doing the same thing, or will be soon if they have not already, and switching to the GOP. This seems like a natural step due to th# leftward drift of the el pee,”
Actually, most of the new members coming into the Libertarian Party are coming in from the Mises Caucus, and the Mises Caucus more right-libertarian. Some of the backlash against the Mises Caucus is from left-Libertarians.
History shows that defensive barriers fail in the long run. The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Walls, and the Maginot Line, all failed.
As Vince Lombardi use to say: “The best defense, is a good offense” In the 19th Century, Americans supported Manifest Destiny: the idea that the US would expand to absorb all the Americas.
However, we don’t need to annex all of Latin America to achieve the same purpose. Just make all of the Americas a free trade area, and American capitalism will put all those Latinos to work, right in their own countries.
How many illegal INVADERS in the USA ???
esp those who are ANTI-Democracy ???
and esp those under control of domestic/foreign criminal gangs – drug mules, sex slaves, etc. ???
How many walls/fences in world history – to stop invaders, criminals, trespassers ???
How many USA olde now ghetto cities are now armed camps – with spy cams, all sorts of guards — human / animal ???
Commies — LOOT everything — Fascists — kill commie looters ???
Walter Ziobro said: “However, we don’t need to annex all of Latin America to achieve the same purpose. Just make all of the Americas a free trade area, and American capitalism will put all those Latinos to work, right in their own countries.”
Yes, get the people working in their own countries, and if people want to donate to charities, do it to charities that work in these countries, which is actually a more efficient and can help more people than bringing, or facilitating, them coming here does.
Also, as I said above, if the taxpayer funded hands out were cut off, and it was made harder to gain citizenship, a lot of these people would stop coming here, and a lot of the ones who are here would leave on their own.
Building the wall is more libertarian because it saves a lot of money from taxpayers paid to illegal invaders and their kids in welfare, education, medical costs etc. And also in dealing with all the murder, rape, robbery, and other crimes they commit.
Labor shortage would be best addressed by ending abortion and welfare. Abortion is murder so it’s libertarian to make that a crime. End welfare so the lazy people on welfare go back to work. And get rid of the minimum wage so they don’t need to be paid more than they are worth. That would keep jobs from going overseas.
Crime also really hurts the economy, so we need a lot more common use of the death penalty instead of paying to house people in prison. If we cut out all the appeals and executed people quickly and applied the death penalty to a lot more crimes we could cut out almost all the crime. Also make drugs legal and let more junkies overdose and take themselves out of the gene pool.
Sorry to see John Andrews leave the Libertarian Party.
Andy, the wall along the Rio Grande is not right on the river bank. It is a good distance north of the river. So there are ranches along the river that are cut off from the rest of the U.S. by the wall, or the proposed wall. There has been lots of publicity about the ranchers along the river fighting the government over the wall.
RW – 5 AMDT just comp for cut-off folks ??? – between wall and border.
SUCH AREA TO BE DEATH ZONE – KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES ???
SEE OLDE BERLIN WALL – DEATH ZONES.
HOW MANY ILLEGAL TUNNELS CROSSING UNDER USA/MEXICO BORDER ???
MORE TUNNELS UNDER ANY WALL ???
Once again, Andy confuses private property borders for forced collectivization. Or rather, he excuses forced collectivization because it fits his personal preference of America’s demography even at the expense of the thing he pretends to uphold: private property rights.
“Building the wall is more libertarian because it saves a lot of money from taxpayers”
Only for as long, and to the extent that it works. History says people will find ways around, or even thru, walls.
A more proactive approach is to put foreigners to work in their own countries, thru free trade.
People complain about trading with China. And, yes, trade with China does create some serious political issues.
But, consider this: Would you rather have all those Chinese coming here to work, rather than producing goods for us in their own country?
What the hell difference does it make. You have a pro-Zionist Capitalist Democratic Party versus a Pro-Zionist Capitalist Republican Party, What a choice! This is the kind of tyranny you would have found in the former USSR, i.e., Communist Party X vs Communist Party Z.
Walls work. So does a deportation force and child separation and remain in Mexico and border patrol and employer fines and sanctions, no services of any kinds for illegals, universal mandatory e-verify, heavy tax on foreign remittances, border kill zone like what was mentioned above. All these are good libertarian ideas which will save taxpayers money overall.
Trade is not enough. The criminals still want to come here to victimize a wealthier population. Anyone who can earn more here than at home or get better conditions, benefits, or government aid. And terrorists who want to attack this country, and so on. So we need a lot stronger border enforcement.
Plus outlaw abortion. Legalized drugs. Much expanded death penalty. End welfare, and end minimum wage. Stop foreign aid and nation building. These are some of the things which will keep foreigners in there own country’s and get more American’s working.
Democrats are capitalist? Not so much.
“Walls work”
History says, only for a short time.
That’s why the rest of that comment is there to be read in contact. Read the whole thing. These are policies which work together like pieces of an engine.
The wall will fail, if only because the need and demand for immigrants is greater right now than the law permits.
The irony of Trump’s protectionist trade policies is that it increases the demand for immigrant labor, because if imports are restricted, we need to produce more goods and services in the US. As I have already pointed out, free trade gives us the goods we need by putting foreigners to work where they live.
And, attempts to increase the native labor force by such methods as subsidizing, or taxing less, larger families, and outlawing abortion cannot take effect fast enough to fill the current demand for labor, especially when there are people LITERALLY waiting at the border to come in right now.
Take people off welfare, you’ll be surprised how many will go get a job. Especially if drugs are legal so they can’t just deal dope instead.