Comments Elsewhere

To Kinsella, I wrote: “But, like both Hoppe and Karl Marx, you believe that until the State does wither away, its powers over ordinary, peaceful people and the daily conduct of their affairs should be drastically expanded. (How much more interdicting, harassing, snooping, demanding of papers, and shooting do you think that the Border Patrol and La Migra ought to be doing?)”

Kinsella replied simply: See above

Which I take it referred to these two paragraphs, in reply to Kennedy:

No, no, I’m just opposed to the state. I’m also opposed to the state opening the borders while it has control of the country in the way that it does.

Are you in favor of completely open borders now, *given* our existing state system? Really? Let me ask you, what is your prediction on how many immigrants would swarm into the country over the next 10-20 years, if we totally opened the borders? Keep in mind we have about 275 million people.

But this does not answer any question I asked or reply to any statement I made. Kinsella does support drastic expansion of the State’s powers over the ordinary affairs of non-citizens. And since government agents have no way of identifying non-citizens without harassing, snooping on, stopping, searching, and demanding the papers of citizens and non-citizens alike, and imprisoning them, beating them, or shooting them if they don’t comply (otherwise known as “closed borders”), Kinsella supports the drastic expansion of State violence and interference in the ordinary affairs of everyone. (As if his proposed assaults on peaceful immigrants weren’t enough!) This is what saying that you are “opposed to the state opening the borders while it has control of the country in the way that it does” means. (Similarly, War Communism, round-ups, government central planning, labor books and internal passports, and turning Party bureaucrats into the dictatorial boss of every worker in the country is what Marxism means–even if Marx piously hoped that it would lead to autonomous, freely-associated labor and the withering away of the State “in the long run”.)

Nor did Kinsella answer the question. Since he believes (as he has repeatedly argued) that current immigration levels are partly due to statism, he evidently believes that as long as the State exists, it ought to be doing more to force immigrants not to peacefully move into the United States than it already is. So how much more of what “closed borders” inevitably requires doing, should they be doing?

And, for what it’s worth, in answer to your questions (which you directed to Kennedy, but apparently also directed to me when you directed me to “See above”): Yes, yes really, and I have no earthly idea–and don’t particularly care. If you don’t like the increasing numbers of peaceful immigrants who don’t speak your language, you can always learn Spanish, or perhaps move to Idaho.