It is wrong to make sweeping assumptions about certain media outlets. I came across what was actually a pretty decent defence of open borders and the benefits of allowing people to migrate between countries over at the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” site, which in my experience often has decent columns but absolutely gobsmackingly bad comment threads, particularly if the subject of the Middle East and specifically, Israel, comes up.
Phillipe Legrain has this pretty good argument in defence of immigration, challenging the recent House of Lords report on the subject. It revives a few of the points I also made here. In that Samizdata thread, one issue that came out in the comments was the idea, which is weird if you think about it, that residents who are lucky enough to be born in a country X are entitled to tell outsiders that they are not entitled to move around. Take the logic further: am I, a British citizen, entitled to ban my fellow Brits from moving abroad if such people are, say, incredibly skilled or rich? What right do I have to do this? (None). But if we are entitled to use some sort of “quality of life” consideration or economic calculus to say that we should ban or cap immigration, then does not the same argument cut the other way when it comes to emigrants?
I ask this question because, like a good classical liberal, what ultimately counts is liberty. The ability to get out of a country is a crucial check on the ability of the rulers of such places to act badly.
By the way, if you read the CiF thread linked to here, it is hard not to be depressed at the sheer, groaning economic illiteracy in evidence. As I keep stating, there is no argument against the influx of immigrants that cannot be used to advocate strict population controls, shorter working weeks to “create jobs”, and other lump-of-labour nonsense.
One caveat: Legrain makes a couple of bad points amid the good ones. He dismisses the House of Lords report on the grounds that it has some Tory members on the panel, such as Lord (Nigel) Lawson. Lawson is a pretty robust advocate of free trade and the descendant of immigrants himself, so Legrain made a cheap shot. Also, immigration may alleviate the coming pension problems by adding to the workforce, but ultimately, that problem will require a long-term rise in savings, and immigration is not a permanent fix for that.
Another writer who is good on the subject is Chris Dillow. He points out that if immigration is so terrible, why not take controls down to a local level, so that people in say, Essex are banned from moving to Hampshire, or Wales, or whatever? No doubt someone will claim this is a “straw man” argument, but it is not. If you believe national boundaries are in fact just lines on a map, then there are other lines, too.
No. That’s a matter for the country to which the emigrant is travelling. If the people there decide they need the emigrant, they allow him in. If they don’t, they don’t.
Right. So if this is not a straw man, let’s extend the logic all the way – what gives you the right to lock your door at night?
Because I own both the door and the house to which it’s attached.
The Government doesn’t actually own the country.
“If you believe national boundaries are in fact just lines on a map”
Yes and no (how quantum of me).
The lines on a map phrase sounds like something that a 6th former would say of “imposed” borders drawn by colonial powers. Indeed they can be that. I would however argue that borders are historically highly influenced by self identifying groups culturally. Yes you can take this down to micro levels, but size tends to be determined by the need to be economically or politically viable.
Who decides whether a migrant is “needed” or not and what, pray, gives a person who is simply born in a country the right to decide this matter? You talk about citizens in a country as if they are shareholders who own privately owned clubs with rules of admission. As Sunfish argues, that analogy does not apply.
However, that is not to say that citizenship, or the ability to move around, could not at some stage be seen in the same way as buying and selling memberships of a club. Say for example that a bunch of people acquire a new patch of land and create their own “private country”, complete with their own admission rules, etc. They could sell citizenship via the internet or somesuch. This is not as far-fetched as it might seem.
Another argument that I encounter is that immigration will reach such a level that a country will become intolerably crowded and full of desperados. But that ignores basic human rationality: a would-be migrant is hardly likely to want to go to a hellishly crowded place full of poor people. In this globalised world with instant communications, people more and more will want to “shop around”, if I can use that term, for the most agreeable places to live and work, as they see it.
Mostly a good article from CiF, though I don’t understand the continual hostility to the points based immigration system. Assuming a country is going to limit immigration, it makes more sense to take a number of factors, such as family connections, education, financial circumstances etc into account rather than just have a number of visa categories and admit only those who come near the top in one particular category . Australia has a points system and has a reasonably high level of immigration with little social or economic dislocation, not that that stops politicians from occasionally trying to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment. I would even advocate a points system for refugees, since, given that we will only take a small number of the world’s 20m+ displaced persons, we should take those who are most likely to be successful in a modern developed economy, with priority given tot hose in the most dire circumstances in their home countries.
Bear with me here.
Private individuals own the land they own. Corporations own the land the own. It is the government, through the legal system, that enforces property laws, is it not? And is it not also true that even now, in the UK, government land is called Crown land, suggesting that it belongs to the Monarch? I know that in Brunei, where it is an absolute monarchy, the Sultan pretty much owns every damned thing.
Fine, if the government does not own the land, who does? Nobody? So then, I can just go and claim it, since nobody owns it, hence I don’t have to pay anybody? Or is the argument that the people as a whole own it? I cannot see libertarians saying that, surely. But if the people as a whole own it, and the government is representing the people, then the government owns it.
Like it or not, national integrity is a hallmark of a society. I, as a citizen, view my country as mine, and do not want to admit more than it can sustain (for example). My neighbour might have different views. And in general, the majority view wins out. Isn’t that the way it should work?
I remember when it worked exactly this way in the USSR – you need internal passports to travel between place and place. Within a politically (or economically) united area, this should not be necessary. But people all over the world still hold to the traditional nation-state (or ’empire’).
As a selfish individual, I would like nothing better than to be able to move around, work, stay, live and holiday anywhere I choose with no restriction. But this CANNOT be done until everyone (and I mean as a mass societal idea, not that every single individual has to agree) sees everyone else NOT as ‘The Other’. Until you have a monoculture like that, you will always have a band of people who say ‘We don’t want them here. They’re not like us’. And, this is a choice they can make, and enforce, isn’t it?
I may be rambling. It’s after working hours for me and I haven’t had dinner yet.
Great logic if we in turn can feely migrate to other countries like America? But of course we can’t, so sorry, please try harder………
Gregory, lots to think about in your interesting comment. I’ll just address one issue, which is that of the “monoculture”, as you call it. For sure, there are a patchwork of different legal, ethical, religious and other forces which affect how countries operate vis a vis things like immigration or emigration. There is no “perfect” state of affairs in which you or I can move around the world without hindrance. That’s undeniable. What is also true is that this situation is unlikely to change soon, or ever. But to argue that because we do not have such a utopian model, that we should therefore persist with the status quo, does not follow.
On pragmatic grounds, I think that as an intermediate step, there is a lot to be said for some sort of points system as mentioned higher on this thread. I also think that as long as we have extensive welfare benefits paid out of tax, that this does create a serious perverse incentive issue; you can have unrestricted immigration, or a welfare state, but you cannot really have both at the same time, for simple reasons of natural justice as well as economic ones.
I know some commenters might be tempted to say, “Oh, Johnathan, you have ignored the elephant in the living room – of Islamists trying to get into the West”. I accept that this is probably the strongest argument of the lot for limiting immigration or at least insisting on a strong assimilation policy for all immigrants who wish to come here. Note that support of immigration is not the same as support of immigration without any conditions.
Jack writes:
Not much logic in that remark. Lots of countries accept immigrants, on different terms and conditions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc….). The number of jurisdictions around the world is expanding, not contracting. And many other countries recognise that taking in hard-working, smart, rich immigrants is a smart thing to do. There is a global competition for talent and money and there is no reason to think that it will not work to the general benefit.
Please try harder!!
JP, part of being a mature human being is realising that people may disagree with you and still be neither stupid, evil or insane.
That said:
No, only that they can’t move to country X and it is not the people that have this power, but the sovereign government, which in our case is (more or less) democratically elected.
It is not hard to understand why. Since the fall of the the Holy Roman Empire it has generally been understood that different boundaries must be differentiated from each other in two ways.
1) That they hold legal sovereignty over a some people and not others.
2) That they hold legal sovereignty over some bits of land and not others.
If you believe that the state is a priori not allowed to exclude people who do not fall under (1) from entering the land mass defined under (2) you are saying you don’t believe in a state at all. That is to say, you are not a classical liberal (not necessarily a bad thing), but an anarchist. Which is fine, but you could have saved youreself a lot of trouble by writing “I believe in unrestricted immigration because I am an anarchist”.
Given that you are not, I think, an anarchist though, it seems to me that your argument is nothing more than a highly confused bluff designed to obsure the fact that your argument that unrestricted immigration is good on utilitarian grounds was shown by many commentators to be based on false premises and shoddy reasoning.
Indeed. No need for gratuitous lectures, either. Mind you, I usually find that people who want to restrict liberties of mature human beings are usually evil, stupid or insane, or possibly all three at the same time.
The shoddy reasoning is yours. One could quite fairly argue that we, de facto, accept that have, as minimal statists, have a state with a monopoly of force to ensure domestic peace and provide defence against attack. That is quite different from arguing that this state, which has the consent of those who live within its boundaries, either has the right to prevent people from leaving it or to prevent people from entering it.
As for the boundaries themselves, they are largely emergent phenomena, usually arrived at because of some natural geographic feature, physical violence and conquest, or very rarely, through some sort of commercial transaction. They are a sort of useful legal fiction in 99% of cases which is useful for things such as courts’ jurisdictions and so on, which is essential for property rights and social intercourse generally.
I don’t see them as having any bearing on stopping people moving around the globe, which is what you seem to be arguing here, unless it is to prevent known criminals or other threatening groups who have a clearly stated desire to overturn said legal order.
As for my argument on unrestricted immigration, I have already pointed out, repeatedly, that I accept that it is unworkable so long as the Welfare State is intact and for other, non-economic reasons, which may have a bearing.
I usually find that people who want to restrict liberties of mature human beings are usually evil, stupid or insane, or possibly all three at the same time.
And so do I. But what if they are the type of people who want to join you, take advantage of your majority system to change the system to impose evil, stupidity, and insanity?
Can’t happen? Before your eyes.
And here’s the naivety of the proposal: there is a difference between the boundaries of a set and the properties of the set members. They are inside for a reason. Geographic contiguity is part of it, but mostly it is culture.
Adopt the culture, the more the merrier (OK, as long as its mine – it IS possible for me to be RIGHT). Refuse to adopt/adapt, why DAR-AL-HARB.
ADE
The British State is not allowed to prevents its subjects from leaving because a host of established precedent and consitutional documents give said subjects legal recourse if they attempt to do so. Non-subjects/citizens are not protected by any of these legal provisions, nor is it entirely celar that they are recognised as legal personas at all if they have not been granted permission by the authorities to enter, except in as much as the Human Rights Act says otherwise. The two examples you give are not linked and to imply that anyone who does not believe in unrestricted immigration must also believe that British citizens can be prevented from leaving is, indeed a strawman.
The basic point is that no state can exist if it cannot decide which non citizens can and cannot enter its territorial jurisdiction. Indeed, using your standard technique of obfustication you admit that later in your post when you state:
You still, though, confuse what is allowed and what is sensible.
The state is allowed to exclude criminals and it is sensible to do so. The state is also allowed to exclude anyone it bloody well wants, which in many cases would not be sensible (and may also be wicked, stupid, nuts etc.) The state has no legal obligations to non-citizens who seek to enter its territorial jurisdicition whatsoever and may control its borders how it wishes.
Now, in this green and pleasant isle, the offices of state are (less than 50 years ago but still) occupied by elected officials, so the question of who and who not to admit will be decided based on upon people’s desires as transmitted through the electoral system, your repeated heroic efforts to find an absolute, and perfect answer to the immigration system notwithstanding. (A course in rhetoric would stand you in better stead than demonstrative political philosophy).
No shit. Were you under the impression that I disagreed with you because I was unaware of this? I don’t remember making the argument that we shouldn’t have unrestricted immigration because national boundaries are an expression of Geist.
That is a good thing, obviously.
No. I think that if people start to assume that “we” Britons, who are here by accident of birth, are allowed to prevent others from sharing this space for no other reason than we want to protect the status quo for whatever reason, then one could quite logically argue that if the status quo is so wonderful, then emigration of important, talented people, say, is a net harm to said country, which should be stopped. Naturally I argue that this is absurd, but that is where this attempt to regulate and in some cases, halt, migration comes from.
And I am arguing against such stupid restrictions, for the reasons given, repeatedly. So a state and its functionaries impose fatuous laws for X or Y. Let’s repeal them or modify them.
I know we live in a democracy. That’s not a good in itself. If a democratically elected state decides to ban all immigrants, say, that does not make it right.
I was under the impression you ascribed a certain key, legal status to a state’s boundaries for the purposes of your argument and I merely pointed out that these boundaries have rarely come into existence through anything other than the effects of war, geography, etc.
The libertarian position is this: all property should be private property. Then there is no government property: all the government does is enforce property rights. (The difference between a libertarian and an anarchist would say the government is not necessary for this.) So the immigrants can only get into the country if people let them cross their land, or buy it.
Libertarians oppose the ability of a majority of people in the country to democratically force a minority of people to do or not do things with their property that they don’t want to.
So libertarians oppose the ability of the majority of people to stop a few people selling their land to immigrants, or letting immigrants on their land.
Johnathan, you appear support this imposition for reasons of stopping Islamic terrorists getting in. Why? Why not for other reasons? Surely libertarianism is all or nothing?
I support the imposition for because I think most people do not consider the small economic benefit to outweigh other personal considerations. You don’t like this, and appeal to the above argument. But then you make an exception for radical Islam. How would you tell who was a terrorist? Would you just ban all Muslim immigration?
Correct. If 51% of the population want to steal the property of the 49%, that is wrong. Majoritarianism is just thuggery via the ballot box.
Liberty and democracy are uneasy bedfellows at best and frequently in conflict.
No. To be banned, the person would have to have committed a crime that is accepted as such under the laws of the country to which said person wished to travel. Suspicion of people who happen to look or dress differently or go to a Mosque is not a sufficient condition.
Obviously.
This roughly analgous to arguing that the urge to steal comes from the same source as the urge to trade i.e. it’s true and it’s not true, but certainly not true in the way you are saying.
Then provide a good argument for why she should do so and stop trying to find geometric solutions.
It does not make it right, but they have the right to do so unlesss you convince them otherwise. End of story, get used to it. You are repeatedly confusing the distinctions between those decisions which are right and wrong, and those decisions, which are allowed and not allowed. This is an exceptionally dishonest mode of argument and, since you refuse to desist, this is my last post on the subject.
So what? They exist now. I wasn’t arguing they should be deified.
I am starting to tire of this, but for another go: If a state says the status quo must be defended, why cannot that also impose restrictions on emigration as well as immigration? Remember all those old worries about the “brain drain”?
Okay. But I am saying that the state’s boundaries are nothing “special” and that those who claim to base things like immigration controls upon them, either for cultural, economic or other reasons should not invest borders with some sort of special status in ways that hinders the freedoms of people to move around. The only case I can think of is, as I have said, where the people moving around are clearly dangerous in some provable way.
Anyway, I am signing off.
They have the power to do so, and I am well “used to it”. I am trying to argue for a point of view. I am under no illusions as to whether I can actually influence my fellow Britons of X or Y.
Dear Jonathan;
Indeed, and I agree with you that a certain amount of immigration is a good thing. So does Michelle Malkin, it would seem, as she herself is an immigrant. And I daresay most other conservatives would also.
Further, the welfare state is just plain wrong and should be scrapped, except at the most basic level (where the government is provider of ‘last resort’, but that’s a pipe dream). In Australia, for instance, permanent residents are not allowed to batten on the State’s coffers for two years.
The thing is, though, what would you call a government? Supposing I, a private citizen, owned, oh say about 17,000 acres of land. I then put an electrified fence around it, declared myself King and God, and hired a thousand guards armed with AK-47s to patrol the perimeter with orders to apprehend with extreme force anyone who tried to cross without my permission. Would I be a government? And yet it is my private property.
And this is no hypothetical – some nut in Western Australia claims he’s King over some rather vast territory. But let’s not go too far – in the Robocop series, Detroit is pretty much run by a company, OmniComsumer Products (OCP). Presumably, Detroit is now privately owned corporate land. What now?
David Eddings, in his Tamuli series, writes about the Isle of Tega, where the government is expected to show a profit, and they cannot raise taxes either. That does NOT sound like ANY government in the real world, let me tell you.
So… if private individuals can own land, and corporations can own land, then why not governments? What is the distinguishing factor?
Anyways, end of the day, I’m sleepy, having eaten far more than I should have. So maybe I’m rambling again. I certainly think the points system is probably the best, assuming you can trust the immigration folk to calibrate it properly.
Also, Johnathan, you seem to imply it is the ‘right’ of immigrants to move anywhere they like. Actually, under the libertarian ideal, they would only be free to move if other property owners let them.
A country is not a private piece of property, like my flat in central London. We have dealt with this higher up the thread. To recap: of course, if you had a “private country” set up from scratch and its owners, or “shareholders,” set rules of admission and banishment, then your point might actually make a lot of sense. To be fair to you, there is already a de facto market in citizenship in parts of the world already via the points system.
I said: Right. So if this is not a straw man, let’s extend the logic all the way – what gives you the right to lock your door at night?
Sunfish said: Because I own both the door and the house to which it’s attached. The Government doesn’t actually own the country.
No – not in the same sense. But the government makes all sorts of laws in respect of what can be done in and to the country on behalf of the electorate. They’re bad at it, and 100% of the people never agree as to what those laws should be, true. But it’s the least bad system the world has come up with.
The government has the right, insofar as it and the electorate have any rights (because your argument is leading towards no rights at all) to decide who to allow in and who not to. As you do with your house.
“A country is not a private piece of property, like my flat in central London. We have dealt with this higher up the thread. To recap: of course, if you had a “private country” set up from scratch and its owners, or “shareholders,” set rules of admission”
Sorry but I think that’s exactly what we do have. A country isn’t a line on a map, it is the boundary of a shared territorial resource. You become a shareholder by being born in it. That gives you rights, and responsibilities towards your fellow shareholders. In our UK territory, we expect, indeed compel, shareholders to keep re-investing throughout their productive lives, in the upkeep of the territory, it’s armed forces, and social and health services.
So yes it is a private country, owned by it’s shareholders.
Johnathan Pearce said: Who decides whether a migrant is “needed” or not and what, pray, gives a person who is simply born in a country the right to decide this matter? You talk about citizens in a country as if they are shareholders who own privately owned clubs with rules of admission. As Sunfish argues, that analogy does not apply.
Sunfish may argue this, but Sunfish is wrong. At least, s/he is wrong insofar as any rights taken from thin air and awarded to people of governments actually exist. If we have no laws, Sunfish is right.
But try moving without permission to any of 50 countries in the world to which one might wish to move. Those people and their governments would disagree with Sunfish, as do I.
However, that is not to say that citizenship, or the ability to move around, could not at some stage be seen in the same way as buying and selling memberships of a club. Say for example that a bunch of people acquire a new patch of land and create their own “private country”, complete with their own admission rules, etc. They could sell citizenship via the internet or somesuch. This is not as far-fetched as it might seem.
Erm, right.
Another argument that I encounter is that immigration will reach such a level that a country will become intolerably crowded and full of desperados. But that ignores basic human rationality: a would-be migrant is hardly likely to want to go to a hellishly crowded place full of poor people. In this globalised world with instant communications, people more and more will want to “shop around”, if I can use that term, for the most agreeable places to live and work, as they see it.
The lack of logic here is interesting.
You ‘encounter an argument’ that the country will be rendered hellish by immigration and use this to suggest it cannot happen. Hmmm. I think that rather depends on your definition of hellish, which may not be quite the same as that of some who might wish to come here.
Iraq, or Zimbabwe, or the Sudan, or Albania: we’d have to sink quite some way to reach those depths, and Britain might remain a very attrac tive proposition for a good part of that time. It would be hellish to me, but perhaps not to a chap from Baghdad.
But you’re right. All we have to do is wait for the country to reach optimum hellishness and then anyone who can afford to move on can do so, leaving the rest of us to decide what to do next.
I was going to abandon this thread out of exhaustion but I could not resist:
Shares are things you choose to buy, hold or sell. Fundamentally different from the lottery of birth. The idea that a guy born in Ethiopia is a “shareholder” of that country, for example, is laughable. Who asked him if he wanted to own stock in that country’s affairs?
That sounds wrong. I don’t compel anyone to be productive, any more I have a right to compel them to be nice, amusing, clever, or whatever. All I ask of others is that they respect my right to live my life as I please, and I respect theirs. Obviously, a minimal state requires some form of upkeep cost, either via taxes or something entirely voluntary. I obviously hope that my fellows are intensely productive and rich: a country that allows motivated people to live in it (immigrants) will often display those characteristics.
It is subjective thing, obviously. For some people, any immigration is bad; for others. That is one reason why this whole debate is not one that can be easily concluded by some sort of economic calculus involving some neat little round number.
Where in the world can anyone freely migrate without restrictions? A world without borders is a world with one world government. Do you really want that?
Must try harder.
Nonsense. Are you under the impression people have always required passports?
Huh? I never said that there are other governments without any border controls (if you can find any, let me know). I said there are governments out there that do allow immigration, quite a lot in fact, and gave some examples.
By the way, the idea that world government flows as a result of the end of borders is nuts. There would, even in a world of free or partially free movement, be territorial groupings with their own laws and customs, which is fine by me. Vive le difference!
I can’t ever figure out what you “open borders” folks want. Is it truly open borders, allowing anyone to wander freely like animals, or do you recognize that a country should have some control over its borders so that at least people coming into the country should pass some sort of check point and present identification?
What if it is a one-way street where country A allows people from country B to come in freely but country B does not allow anyone from country A? What if people from country B commit crimes in country A and then skedaddle back to country B which refuses to extradite them?
Do you recognize a distinction between ordered liberty and anarchy?
I can’t ever figure out what you “open borders” folks want. Is it truly open borders, allowing anyone to wander freely like animals, or do you recognize that a country should have some control over its borders so that at least people coming into the country should pass some sort of check point and present identification?
I can’t speak for the other “open borders” folks but yes like animals (we are animals!) sounds good to me. No check points, no id check, no passports. Fantastic! It’s a beautfiul dream. The one way street would be a shame but better than no way at all. Extradition would certainly be important. But there should be a way to work that out though without having to close the border.
Liberty and anarchy? Libertarianism would mean a move towards anarchy, I agree, in the sense of less state power. However I don’t think there’s really a conflict there. I believe in private property rights and don’t think this conflicts with the idea of an open border world.
“The idea that a guy born in Ethiopia is a “shareholder” of that country, for example, is laughable.”
Why?
No Perry, people have not always required passports. In fact defined borders are a relatively recent development. On the other hand until relatively recently if you happened to travel within reach of another tribe’s arrows, spears or swords you did so at at their forbearance. Unless of course you were part of a larger or better armed group. Well, it is still like that in some parts of the world.
I think it perfectly grand if the UK, in fact all of the EU, want to open your borders, or in fact do away with them altogether. But, as for myself no thanks.
I would hazard to say that the U.S. has accepted and assimilated more emmigrants over the past 100-150 years than most of the rest of the world collectively. But, you would have never found many advocates of “open borders” during the periods of great immigaration, and you will not find many now.
After due consideration, this is a pretty silly discussion.
I never said that there are other governments without any border controls (if you can find any, let me know).
There was (sort of) one just before the second world war, which was the International Settlement in the treaty port of Shanghai. More a city state than a state, and the lawyers would say it was not truly sovereign, although for many practical purposes it was. Tens of thousands of Jews escaped the Holocaust because of its existence
“That sounds wrong. I don’t compel anyone to be productive, …..
…. Obviously, a minimal state requires some form of upkeep cost, either via taxes”
All of us who have no private income are compelled to be productive, or seek productive work, if we want to be well fed and housed.
Whenever any of our citizens is productive,or just fortunate, ie in receipt of a stream of revenue, that is taxable.
Whenever a commercial transaction takes place, that is taxable.
Whenever a person dies, his wealth is taxable.
And during our lives, should parliament re-introduce conscription into the armed forces, the compulsory levy on us may cost us life and limb.
Things may be different elsewhere, or in your ideal world. But we don’t live there, we live here.
Why? asks Monty.
As I said, a shareholder of a company chooses, and can choose, to own, hold, buy or sell the stock in that company. A company is formed for a specific purpose, in its document of incorporation, to make or sell goods and services. A country is an association, more akin to a club, the membership of which is not, in any example I can think of, sellable or buyable. It might be possible in some utopian future to buy or sell citizenship on the LSE or the Nasdaq, but until that time arrives, talking about citizenship as akin to the freely tradable status of a shareholder is simply confusing the issue.
There are superficial similarities, such as AGMs, shareholder votes on the chairman and board of directors, but the difference – choice – is the key here.
I agree with that. But you said originally, and I quote:
Why should a person be compelled to “invest” (ie, spend money, let’s not misuse the word investment) in services if he does not see a need for them? For defence and law and order, i can see the argument that one should be forced, if necessary, to provide for common defence or the courts, since without both, the very freedoms we enjoy go away. But that’s about it.
Then try asking. I think you will find ‘us’ open borders folks do not all want the same things.
At which point I more or less lose interest in replying to you. Let me turn that question around: so you want people kept in pens, like animals?
And do you recognize a distinction between anarchy and chaos? No rational supporter of anarchy is a supporter of chaos (as it happens I am not an anarchist, however unlike you, I actually know what anarchists are arguing for).
Completely open borders is where Libertarianism crosses over into anarchy unless you have one world government to control it.
Nations states are a good idea because they create competition amongst each other and keep apart groups that have such wildly differing outlooks it would prove a disaster.
Imagine if you will a Soviet Union covering the entire globe. Order can only be kept by tight control and the inhabitants would never know what an alternative system could be like.
Control what?
I do, however, agree with you on the latter point you make. In practice, there will be different groupings of people sharing different cultural/other factors in common so, if my “utopian” model of market-priced citizenship ever takes flight, we can genuinely shop around
This discussion has veered a bit off its original point, though. I don’t honestly believe completely open borders are a practical possibility any time soon for all the reason other commenters have given.
But the right to migrate is one that I’d like to think would get rather more support from supposed free marketeers than it does. It is a bit odd, actually, how supporters of free markets at home often develop a bit of a blind spot on the immigration issue, or at least do so unwittingly. I think the nationalism/cultural issue is clearly what drives this most of the time.
Ask an American Indian how well unrestricted immigration worked out for them.
The problem is not immigration, it is the welfare and regulatory state. Get rid of those and most of the problems associated with immigration go away.
saying that the problems of national Immigration are just as comparable to that of local Immigration, ignores the naturally involved nature of man to want to live a tribal environment.
What’s missing from JP’s arguments, I think, is the concept of freedom of association. A country is (or at least, should be) something more than just “lines on a map”. Its citizens should share certain key elements (language, culture, heritage, religion, ethnicity, etc.) which bind them together. Obviously there is room for differences, and not all citizens need to have all of those elements in common, but without some fundamental commonality (for convenience, please allow me to refer to this as a “culture”) there really is no “country” in any meaningful sense. What you have in that case is something like Iraq, a “country” only in a legal sense, cobbled together by the European powers after WWI from a group of unrelated and often incompatible nomadic tribes whose only real “commonality” was geographic proximity. We all see how well that’s worked out.
If a “country” shares a “culture” (as I defined it above), then it makes perfect sense for its citizens to restrict immigrants to people whom they expect will fit in and contribute to the common weal. We call this “freedom of association” and, far from being inimical to libertarianism, is in fact one of its fundamental tenets. Remember, freedom of association necessarily includes the correlative freedom not to associate.
This is why it is right (and consistent with libertarian principles) for a country (acting through its representative government) to limit immigration on terms which a majority of its citizens deems appropriate, and to exclude prospective immigrants whom it believes would be harmful (for whatever reason, not merely because of having a criminal history or carrying communicable diseases) to its society. It is also why it is right (and not inconsistent with libertarian principles) for a country to insist that immigrants learn the language, move out of ghettos and barrios, and generally assimilate into the larger culture. Failure to do so can only result in the “balkanization” of the country and, ultimately, the destabilization of its culture. That way lies, not anarchy, but chaos.
“But if we are entitled to use some sort of “quality of life” consideration or economic calculus to say that we should ban or cap immigration, then does not the same argument cut the other way when it comes to emigrants?”
It is just me or some in Samizdata recently just seems to make some awkward comparisons and subpar posts? Apply that to your Home…if you dont let anyone enter it you should also not let anyone get out of it…obviously the same really!
I don’t think debating whether people should be confined to their places of birth like animals in a pen is “silly”. The anti-immigratioin people choose to resort to socialistic sorts of arguments to justify telling people to stay put and mind their place. Hardly a worldview which I want to encourage.
You think the post was “sub-par” because you disagree with it. My point, which seems to be getting missed here, is that if a group of people declare that they want to protect their status quo by preventing any significant changes to their local population composition, then they might also want to prevent people leaving that country if it signficantly changes their preferred local population. In the 60s and 70s, Britain suffered a significant “brain drain”; it is continuing to do so, arguably, as a result of varioius forces, including the policies of our own government. Now, one can debate whether the net population trend matters as an issue of public policy, but the argument does cut both ways.
And of course the anti-immigration folk don’t want to think about this. I come across a lot of immigrant-bashers who in the same breath will happily talk about their desire to leave this country because “it is getting full of those nasty smelly immigrants”; do they not get it that to emigrate, other countries must be able to tolerate immigration of a certain level? I remember a former commenter, Verity, who in one sentence would attack immigrants and at the same time explain why she was so glad to have emigrated.
Depends what you mean by “tribal”.
The point I was making by talking about local as well as national boundaries was to highlight the idiocy of arguing that foreigners “take” jobs and then point out the same daft logic might apply if people move within a country.
Not quite what I mean by allowing law-abiding people to enter a country with means of defending its borders from armed attack.
This is why it is right (and consistent with libertarian principles) for a country… to exclude prospective immigrants whom it believes would be harmful…
I would question you on two points. One, I would ask if you really believe that restricting immigration is good for the world or just for the country you happen to live in. For something to be justifiable as right I think you have to argue the case that the world is a better place not just one country.
Second, I don’t think restriciting immigration is consistent with libertarian policies. Certainly it’s one of the debated topics within the movement. Ron Paul was in favour of strengthening the borders. I believe the last LP candidate was also not for open borders. The LP party itself though seems to support open immigration. Of course, we may argue about what the principles of libertarianism are. But for me, one them is that something can be a crime only if it consists of an individual harming another or his property. And this crime only takes place when the act is done, not before. It doesn’t happen, just because the person looks like other criminals or belongs to a certain group. From this principle we can see that drugs should be legal for example. But I think we can also say from this principle that crossing a border, seeking work or purchasing goods cannot be taken as a crime and therefore cannot be prevented by law.
Perhaps you will deny this as a libertarian principle but if you accept it as one I don’t see how it can be consistent with restricting the movement of people.
Also ~
It is also why it is right (and not inconsistent with libertarian principles) for a country to insist that immigrants learn the language, move out of ghettos and barrios, and generally assimilate into the larger culture.
Your’e kidding here, right? Please explain to me why if I choose to go to live in an enclave of rastafarians and speak Latin till the end of my days, why that should be any of your business. I don’t know about principle but it’s surely in the spirit of libertarianism that the state doesn’t make laws regarding lifestyle.
Johnathan
This is an excellent thread.
I believe we live not according to (one or several) principles that are in harmony, but between opposing principles in tension. The nature of argument tends to force us into one camp or another, but to take one example, some diversity is good but too much is bad. The fact that last week I spent a delightful hour or two discussing Communism, Capitalism and Mao with a young Chinese couple in Witney does not mean I do not cherish the millennium of culture and tradition that informs life here, or that they do not respect it (as individuals), or that I would be glad if Witney were to be settled entirely by Chinese immigrants.
To say as one commenter did that surely ‘libertarianism is all or nothing’ is to miss the point. It is neither all, nor nothing. And the notion that we might wander ‘wander freely like animals’ is equally wrongheaded. Animals can usually freely leave their group, but cannot usually freely join other groups. They must hope to be accepted, so they very seldom do actually leave without being driven out. Expulsion is normally fatal. All animal groups are disposed hierarchically, even in cuddly vegetarian species such as gazelles, whose dominant herd members have the privilege of giving birth in the middle of the group, with the lower ranks more vulnerable to predation by lions and hyaenas on the outskirts.
By temperament, I am an individualist, and therefore have repeatedly found group norms to be irritating, simplistic, and sometimes downright threatening. But the considerable periods I have spent living abroad have made me more appreciative of the commonality of Britishness, and I find I am obliged to recognise that human society is territorial, social, and ordered by power relations. I have only to experience life in France to know that I will never be French, although on an individual level may be permitted to take up a French identity.
Johnathan, you refer to this as an accident of birth, but it is not, any more than is my intelligence or other characteristics. I was born to my parents in Oxford, they were born to theirs in London and Birmingham, who were born to theirs etc. To call this a series of accidents is to disown the fabulous multiplicity of intention, choice and desire which directs our lives. It is not an accident that life in Britain is colossally different from life in Africa, and somewhat different from life in France.
You may say that doesn’t give ‘us’ the right to exclude people we don’t want. As Jack Palance says to the homesteader in ‘Shane’ who has called him a liar: ‘Prove it’. In that film, of course, Shane ultimately does ‘prove it’, and the power in the land passes over from the ranchers Palance is hired by to the farmers Shane has adopted. It is this statement of the roots of all community in an act of violence which makes ‘Shane’ one of the greatest films ever made. In another western, Firecreek, James Stewart says in self-criticism to his friend, before confronting Henry Fonda’s band of thugs terrorising their town: ‘Do you know what I saw when I came to this valley? Land nobody would fight me for..’
There is no such land.
Stephen, you have a lot of interesting parallels there but I kind of got lost between the gazelles and Jack Palance. Perhaps you can make it more clear by answering some simple examples.
I’m also from Oxford but for ten years I’ve been living and working in Tokyo. I am allowed to for now, but should I be?
I would like to take my Filipina maid to the UK to look after my aging father but I’m not allowed to. Is that a good thing?
I would like to bring my father to Japan to live with me here but I may not be allowed to. Would that be fair?
If any of these shouldn’t be allowed can you explain why? If they should, what should not be allowed and why according to you? If you can give me some explanation with regard to concrete examples, it would be much easier for me to understand.
Stephen, thanks. Lots of interesting stuff in your comment. Can I just take issue with one bit though:
Well, of course it is true that to be born an Englishman was once regarded as to have won first prize in the lottery of life. (I am not sure many people are so confident of asserting that these days, given all that has happened). But I think you are not quite right; yes, of course, if I choose to have kids, that is my choice, but my kids would hardly claim that their being born in Britain, as a result of that Pearce bloke, was something they had any control over. This is one reason why we demur at the idea that children have open-ended obligations to their parents, in the same way that libertarians disagree with the notion that a citixen has open-ended, unchosen obligations to the state, or Volk, or whatever, beyond the minimal obligation to respect his fellows.
This is one of the issues, and areas, where I part company with conservatives, much as some of our ideas overlap at times.
Our arrival on this Earth is a sodding great accident – to put it in cruder terms than Richard Dawkins might like. It is a gazillion-to-one shot that we are here at all. Therefore, it strikes me as entirely rational to argue that we are not entitled to stand in the way of our fellows who want to live in the same terroritory as us, so long as they don’t predate or use violence against the property and lives that we have built.
I like the movie Shane. I must get the original novel.
Simon C asks two questions concerning my earlier post. The first is whether I “really believe that restricting immigration is good for the world or just for the country you happen to live in”. I never said that it’s necessarily good for either; I only said it’s the right of people to choose those with whom they wish to associate. That may be good or bad for them (or the world); their choice may be sensible or foolish; but it’s their choice to make, and they shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to make it.
His second point (not really a question) was an assertion that restrictions on immigration are inconsistent with libertarian principles; that merely crossing a border in itself harms no one’s person or property. I’m not sure that’s either accurate or relevant. Certainly forcing someone to associate with anyone not of his choosing is a species of harm. And it seems to me that one has a “property” interest (or something analogous to one) in preserving the culture of one’s community or country, to which unfettered immigration would pose serious jeopardy. In any event, if what we have here is the conflict of two interests (those of the locals seeking to preserve their culture, and those of foreigners seeking to immigrate), the former must trump the latter. As I have said, freedom of association is a quintessential libertarian principle; I see no libertarian-recognized “right” to force your presence upon people who don’t want to be around you.
Laird,
Ok. Perhaps I misunderstood your post. I thought you were promoting restricting immigration as a good thing. Do you believe it to be a good or a bad thing? I’m not so interested in the question of whether countries should have the right to restrict. For me, the important thing question is whether they should or not.
On the second point, thank you for clarifying. I think there is a problem in your argument though. For me it seems what you are saying would hold very well for say, a gated community in Beverly Hills for example. A group of residents has chosen to exclude outsiders, each resident has agreed to this policy presumably and yes, this all seems fair and libertarian. But I don’t think this can be extended to the whole country. For one thing, not all the citizens agree to this policy by any means. Many people want to employ immigrants or to otherwise trade with them. Fundamentally many people do want them here and so it’s not a case of locals versus immigrants so much as immigrant friendly locals versus immigrant hostile locals. If I want to open a factory using cheap imported labour is it libertarian if you prevent me by saying you don’t want to have to see these people around or you don’t like what they’re doing to the culture? I don’t think so. To me that seems like your “rights” would be trampling mine. If everyone in the nation wanted to restrict immigration then I agree it would be libertarian that they have the right to do so. But the fact is that, for example, I would like to bring a maid to look after my father and your saying I can’t because.. you don’t like it. That can’t be libertarian. Does this make sense?
Simon, very good comment.
The idea that a country is like one big gated community, or as a guy said higher up, a company with shares, is the sort of image that a lot of people seem to carry around in their heads when discussing this stuff. But the parallel does not really work, although I can see why some people might be tempted by the analogy.
Laird writes:
I think we need to be bit more clear about the terms here. If an immigrant comes to live next door to my flat – as many have – they are not “forcing me” to do anything. If they burgled my house, that would be a crime, but no different if it were carried out by someone who was born here, for example.
As the issue of preserving a culture, in which one has an interest, the problem with this is that again, it depends what you mean by the culture you want to defend. It makes sense to be wary of immigrants who wish to overturn a liberal society and replace it with a severely authortarian one. That is why I have referred to the idea that there ought to be, at least, a basic requirement by any immigrant that they abide by the basic laws of a liberal society (outlawing theft, fraud, etc). But again, this applies just as much to anyone.
The problem in Britain is not immigration per se; the problem has been a spineless political and cultural establishment that is frightened of standing up for the values of tolerance and equality before the rule of law. It would be well to remember that many immigrants, such as the Jewish figures who enriched our academic world during the last century, have been among some of the best defenders of that culture.
Well, Simon, since you asked, my personal opinion (as a citizen and resident of the U.S.) is that there should be much more legal immigration than is currently permitted. In general it would be a great boon to the economy, for reasons most people on this site would understand. The caveat, of course, is that such people must be a benefit to society, not a drain on it. In other words, no welfare benefits until they’ve been here a reasonable period of time (5 years, maybe); no demanding that governmental services be provided in their language; etc. Having said that, I maintain my position that if a majority of the citizenry feels differently, and wants to exclude a larger number than I would, that’s their right. And I don’t require 100% unanimity, either; a simple majority is sufficient.
As to your second paragraph, I think you’re confusing your rights with your desires. You have a “right” to start a factory; you have no “right” to cheap labor to run it. Labor costs, like the price of any other commodity, are a function of supply and demand. If the supply is somewhat reduced by the exclusion of immigrants, the cost will go up. That will ultimately translate into higher prices and less economic growth (which I don’t think is a good thing, as discussed in the previous paragraph). But if that’s what a majority of the citizenry wants, so be it; stupidity is its own reward. There are constraints on the supply of all sorts of commodities. Dumping waste into rivers reduces the disposal costs of chemical companies; are you suggesting that since governmentally imposed limitations on that activity increases the price of their products, the increased costs to your factory somehow violates your “right” to cheap raw materials? I don’t think so.
The analogy of a country to a giant gated community isn’t a bad one (Jonathan’s cavalier dismissal of it notwithstanding). We maintain huge armies to patrol those gates. What’s the point if we just leave them open? Without them you’re simply dismissing the concept of a “country” as generally understood. I’m not prepared to accept that.
[Sidebar to Mr. Pearce: How is your first name spelled? In your byline to the original post which started this thread the third letter is an “h”, and it appears that way in most of your subsequent contributions. But in the masthead of this website, where you are listed as a “Principal contributor”, there is no “h”. Which is correct? Or don’t you care?]
Laird, I’m surprised that you agree that there should be more legal immigration. I didn’t expect that! I’m very glad that we agree on that point.
Still, I disagree on the second. Let me give an example. Imagine there are ten houses in a Beverly Hills valley somewhere. At the moment they are not gated. Are you saying that if six of the houses would like to impose gating on the valley they should be able to overule the other four? Do you even go as far as to say that if I’m in one of these four houses employing a Mexican gardener and house keeper say, that the residents of the six houses should be able to prevent me from doing so? I would agree if these conditions were all in place when I bought the house, but imagine this is not the case. I agree that my employment of these people is perhaps more a desire not a right but I think it is a more important desire. Employing these people is likely to be very important to my way of life, whereas the other six houses just don’t want to see these people around. Their desire is surely somehow less important than my desire to employ. What do you think?
“The problem is not immigration, it is the welfare and regulatory state. Get rid of those and most of the problems associated with immigration go away.”
Ah, the nub of the problem. The high levels of immigration into the West, which cause such ethnic/linguistic/religious/cultural consternation, simply wouldn’t exist if there weren’t so many perverse incentives for so many dependent people to come here, feeling entitled to all manner of accomodation.
Anonymous – I’m half Creek. Your statement is true as far as it goes. But it isn’t an industrializing society impinging on a stone age society this time. This is another facet of the great conflict of our time: Liberty versus Statism.
Kill the welfare state, open the borders. We’ll still get immigrants, because we live in the best countries in the world. We’ll just go back to getting the ambitious and the self-reliant, instead of such hordes of the uneducated and dependent lot we’re drawing now.
Simon, I don’t accept your analogy. The gated community in which we both live already exists; no one is changing the rules to create it. All I’m arguing is that the current residents have every right to regulate how wide the gate is opened, and if we differ on our respective perceptions of the proper width of the opening, the majority rules. So be it. If you want to hire a maid, you’ll just have to pay the market rate for one.
Laird, another problem with the gated community analogy is that one should remember that one type of gated community is known as a prison.
To quote the late Noel Cowerd in The Italian Job: “The purpose of a prison is not just to keep people in, but to keep people out.”
Heh.
There are lots of pithy Noel Coward quotes, many of them quite amusing and some of them just silly. This one falls into the latter group.
If we have to quote Coward, I’d prefer “Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.”
The Italian Job is a silly film. That’s the whole point. (It is one of my favourites). It is satire, with all manner of ironical themes, including a prisoner (played by NC) who objects to people trying to break into the jail. Which is why I thought it would be rather good to use it in poking fun at the notion that a country is like a “gated community”. A lot of worriers on immigration are, well, like NC’s character, Mr Bridger. Very similar, in fact.
I’m sorry, Johnathan, but I’m not following your argument. As best I can determine you’ve made only the following two statements vis a vis the analogy of a country to a gated community:
The idea that a country is like one big gated community, or as a guy said higher up, a company with shares, is the sort of image that a lot of people seem to carry around in their heads when discussing this stuff. But the parallel does not really work, although I can see why some people might be tempted by the analogy.
Laird, another problem with the gated community analogy is that one should remember that one type of gated community is known as a prison.
The first statement is the only one of any substance, but it’s merely conclusory; you’ve never stated why “the parallel does not really work.” To me it seems a very good analogy (much better than that of a shareholder-owned company). Why do you think otherwise? What about it makes it a false parallel?
Laird, the reason why I have a bit of a problem with those who liken their favoured immigration policy (ie, keep some of them out) to a gated community is because gated communities fall into two broad categories: jails, and private sector associations where the occupants choose to buy or sell leases and properties in these places. A gated community in say, East Anglia or Texas is not a state; it does not have things like powers of arrest, or the ability to enter treaties with other states and communities; it cannot compel its members to pay taxes for its upkeep beyond what they have contracted to do.
Now, some utopians and speculists, including writers of science fiction, have argued that the idea of private “countries”, where citizenship is buyable and tradable, might be viable. It might. My difficulty, however, is that the sort of people who want to restrict immigration tend not to be radicals in that sense, quite the opposite. It makes no sense for a British citizen to view immigrants, of whatever sort, as the equivalent of new clients or investors in a commercial entity with a specific commercial or other contractrual agreement.
Of course, there might be a lot to be said for gated communities; in some ways, they represent a throwback to the old European city states, and the network of cities that operated under things like the Hanseatic League.
Thank you for the expansion of your argument. I still don’t agree, but at least I understand it better.
Obviously, I’m not arguing that a gated community is a country; this is merely an analogy, but you understand that. Still, I think it’s a pretty close one. True, it has no power of arrest, but a gated community (or, for that matter, an ungated PUD) effectively does assess taxes: in addition to the annual fee, they can make special assessments with the consent of a majority of the residents (unanimity not required), and if you don’t pay it they place a lien on your property. As to entering into treaties, I used to live in one which did precisely that: we reached an agreement with an adjoining PUD to allow their residents access to our pool and amenities for a small fee.
True, people volitionally buy into a gated community and know what they’re buying, but they also inherit property there or are born into it, and are still subject to the same rules. So I think there are a lot more similarities than you’re giving credit for.
Anyway, analogies notwithstanding, I still come back to the right of a nation to define who and how many foreigners to admit, and to exlude all others, on a “freedom of association” basis if for no other reason. I suppose we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
I see only one clearly stated rationalization for JP’s argument against state-enforced immigration laws: namely that allowing the state to enact immigration laws will enable the state to enact emigration laws.
This argument strikes me as absurd; there is no causal relationship between the two policies. Emigration restrictions can be enacted without immigration restrictions and vice versa.
States can pass laws as they please in accordance with their established procedures. States with representative governments are unlikely to easily enact and enforce significant freedom-of-movement restrictions on their own citizenry because governance in such states is inherently self-limiting. If such a state (or any other, for that matter) does manage to enact such a law, then it likely will be the rule of the gun again as the opening statement of the Declaration comes into effect.
States with representative governments are, however, exceptionally likely to enact restrictions regarding the admission and required conduct of non-citizens wishing to immigrate. The citizenry are perfectly within their rights to control the territory that it does indeed collectively own. The citizenry are also perfectly within their rights to limit the dilution of whatever collective characteristics they share by restricting the influx of outsiders, just as they are perfectly within their rights to prohibit unregistered vehicles from traveling their collectively-owned roads.
Americans have certain rights granted them by God and guaranteed them by the Constitution and the power of the United States government. We collectively fought or paid for the territory we control, and we can control our collective territory as we collectively see fit. Non-Americans have the same God-given rights to their own territory, but by no means the same guarantees. Nothing stated above justifies why this should be different.
If I inherit property, I obviously can do with it as I want as I am effectively inheriting the freedoms given to me by the bequester of the property. But to suggest that say, Americans or Britons or Frenchmen have inherited the right to exclude others, when their forbears enjoyed the benefits of immigration, is odd. People alive today would do well to remember that a country is not a static thing. It ought to go without saying that this should be particularly obvious to Americans.
Trollfeeder writes:
It does rather depend on what those “established procedures are”. If the procedures are badly designed or just plain wrong, that is not much of an argument. You are just offering a sort of stubborn defence of the status quo.
“collective characteristics” is such a wooly term that it justifies all manner of socialistic bans on activities, not just movement of people from A to B. At best, it could be taken to justify a fossilised society with considerable controls on human behaviour. I want none of it, and it has nothing to do with the sort of liberal order of say, a country like the USA.
And spare us the crap about how all these laws are “sanctioned by God”. Please.
As I said, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. We’ve all made our points. Good thread, but I’m done with it.
Well now, that was a spectacularly gratuitous mischaracterization. I did not even remotely imply that any laws were sanctioned by God. I referenced the self-evident truth that I have unalienable rights granted by my Creator, not by any human construct. It is the protection of those rights that comes from man-made laws.
I should have though it blindingly obvious that “[i]t does rather depend on what those ‘established procedures are’” given the commentary on the self-limiting nature of representative government. For instance, in Cuba, the established procedure leaves much to be desired. In the US, however, the process is as close to good as one is going to find, because it is representative and malleable to the will of the citizenry within the constraints defined by the Constitution and consequent law. You dismiss as a stubborn and bad argument the characteristic that separates civilized, consensual government from “might makes right.”
Of course “collective characteristics” can be as broadly defined as the group making the definition desires. If you are not a member of the group, then how is that any of your business? Do you really wish to argue that an outside force has the right to dictate what a given group decides shall be the entrance requirements to its territory? If you are unwilling to accept their terms, then don’t come to their country.
I thought this board was for libertarians, not libertines.
Finally, you completely failed to address the actual criticism of your argument. I have had less disingenuous discussions with troofers. Feh.
Silly. This implies that only believers in a supreme being can argue for the case for human rights. Natural rights doctrine does not require said.
Since I don’t accept your apriori argument that a self-identifying “group” that happens, by historical accident, to occupy a piece of territory, is entitled to prevent other people from moving from A to B unless they use fraud or force, I reject your conclusion. The only “entrance requirements” that are legitimate are the minimal ones to respect other people’s life and property, nothing else.
It is. You don’t sound like the former, so who are you to pass judgement on that?
Anyway, I am done with this thread. Thanks for the comments.