Tom: “That is why he cannot not see the parallel between a house-family, and country-citizens.”

Tom, do you genuinely think that the relationship between parent and child is an appropriate model for the relationship between the State and its subjects? Some of us are wary of the historical tropes of absolute monarchy. Some of us also prefer to be treated as adults.

That said, let’s grant your analogy for a moment. What kind of parent is the government? Does your father take half of the money you earn at your job and use it for his own purposes? Does he follow you back to your house and beat you up if you smoke dope or invite the wrong people to stay with you?

“He looks at the USA as an artifical institution that only gets in the way of his plans for the world – whatever they may be.”

You seem to be confused. I don’t have a plan for the world. I have a plan for the peaceful enjoyment of my own property and I object to the government using violence to interfere with it. I also object to the government (or anyone else) using violence to interfere with other people’s plans for the peaceful enjoyment of their own property. I don’t have any intentions with setting their plans myself.

This is one of the many things that distinguishes me from, say, a Maoist. It’s also one of the many things that distinguishes me from you: you have a plan for a particular sort of demographics (economic? ethnic?) in the United States and feel free to endorse attacks on other people peacefully enjoying the use of their own property in order to implement that plan. It is that to which I object.

“Rad Geek sees the government for as something that solely applies force.”

How do do you think the government enforces its edicts? Magic wands are in short supply.

“By this he implies, and wants us to beleive, that applying force is wrong and unnecessary.”

This is a grave misunderstanding. I don’t object to using force. What I object to is initiating force. Think of it this way: making a law means, ultimately, using violence if necessary to enforce the provisions of the law. Laws are justified when using violence is justified (e.g., laws to prevent pillage, rape, murder, etc.). They are not justified when using violence is not justified (i.e., forcing someone to give a job to disadvantaged minorities, forcing someone to give a job to privileged majorities, forcing someone not to smoke dope, etc.).

“What he does not mention is that he has no real solutions.”

Solutions for what? I’m not interested in solving social problems by attacking people. My suggestion is to stop trying. If you want to talk about nonviolent means of building a healthy, vigorous, and prosperous community, let’s talk.

“His solutions are impractical.”

Do you think that the current immigration prohibition is “practical”? What practical ends is it achieving?

“This is what communists did in Eastern Europe.”

I am not the one who advocates attacking immigrants to enforce a vision for America. You are.

Me (2004-11-18): “The issue is whether or not it’s morally acceptable to shoot innocent people for crossing borders in order to do a job. If it’s is, then good God, why? If it isn’t, then you are better off living with whatever consequences come, your vision for America notwithstanding.”

gc (2004-11-18): ‘I should also note that this border crossing is hardly the “innocent” activity you imagine. Here’s a mirror of the recent TIME magazine article, “Who Left the Door Open?”.

[news account of immigrants trespassing, using property as latrines, cutting fences]

Hmmmm…doesn’t sound so “innocent” any more, does it? Would you like thousands of people per day walking over your lawn, defecating on your property, killing your animals, and cutting your fences?’

Me (2004-11-18): “But that, of course, is not the issue. As you well know, there are already laws against trespassing, destruction of property, grand larceny, etc. As you also well know, immigration restrictions are enforced against would-be immigrants whether or not they commit any of these crimes, because the purpose of immigration restrictions is to limit the volume of immigration. Simply demanding that the police enforce laws against littering, trespassing, theft, destruction of property, grand larceny, etc., would be enough for you if your only concern were with the fact that some immigrants happen to violate property rights in the course of making their way into the United States.

“You would also, of course, recognize and account for the fact that most of these crimes are committed precisely because the immigrants have to dodge armed men who are willing to kill them if necessary in order to stop them from living and working in the United States. If you eliminate those restrictions, you will also eliminate most of the reasons to sneak through, hide, consort with criminals, etc.

“If you want to have an intelligent discussion, I strongly suggest you stick to the point rather than introducing red herrings that have nothing to do with the enforcement of immigration law.”

Me (2004-11-26): “Do you think that if the government refuses to shoot someone for peacefully entering the country and working (for a private employer, not the government) for pay, that’s a hand-out akin to a parent providing dinner for a kid? If so, why?”

gc (2004-11-26): “First of all, that entry is NOT peaceful:

[blah blah blah same news account]

“So let’s omit the misleading adjective in the future, shall we? 3 million illegals per year come to more than 10000 per day, a veritable human wave of felony immigration violators, drug smugglers, and trespassers.”

gc, again, this is a red herring. Your proposal is to get men with guns and clubs and have them use violence against immigrants to keep them out whether or not they are trespassing and whether or not they have damaged anyone’s property. The reason I talk about peaceful immigrants is because the issue here is not trespassing law, it’s immigration law. I have no objections to using proportional force to prevent people from trespassing or vandalizing property. I do have objections to attacking people who are doing nothing other than traveling to get a job. Since that is where you and I disagree, that is what we are arguing over.

You don’t care whether the immigrants are damaging property or not—you will endorse attacking whether they are trespassing or going only where they have been invited. If your concern were only immigrants who were trespassing on private property, we wouldn’t be arguing. Please stop introducing red herrings and stay on the topic.

gc on why the government can shoot you in order to enforce your neighbors’ preferences about whether non-citizens stay at your house, but not whether citizens can: “If my child is performing badly in life, I have a responsibility to take care of him. I don’t have a responsibility to take care of someone else’s kid who comes barging into my house without my permission and sits down at my dining table with a chip on his shoulder, screaming at me for “racism” if I don’t give him dinner.”

gc, do you earnestly believe that the relationship between the State and its citizens (subjects?) is properly like that between a parent and a child? If so, why?

Do you think that if the government refuses to shoot someone for peacefully entering the country and working (for a private employer, not the government) for pay, that’s a hand-out akin to a parent providing dinner for a kid? If so, why?

gc: “Both the communist and the extremist libertarian assume that you can have equal affection (call it X) for all 6 billion other people. The libertarian sets X = 0, while the communist sets X = 1 (where X = 0 corresponds to no altruistic behavior whatsoever and X = 1 corresponds to the extent that you love your own child.)”

Do you earnestly believe that the way only way a person can or should show affection for someone is to steal other people’s money, or use violence to obstruct other people from getting a job, for that person’s benefit? If so, why?

Remember, this argument is not about “affection,” it’s about the use of force. I love my family and my friends and I have no trouble helping them. I do have a problem with attacking other people in order to do it.

… the corporate welfare budget is over $65,000,000,000.00 / year in direct subsidies and costs taxpayers somewhere on the order of $300,000,000,000.00 each and every year through the effects of programs such as agricultural price supports. Net tax recipients among the super-rich are clustered in heavily subsidized and cartelized industries such as agribusiness, fuel extraction, electricity generation and trading, some areas of timber, etc. This isn’t even counting entire industries whose entire business model is built around government-granted and government-enforced monopolies (the film industry, the music industry, the pharmaceutical industry, etc.).

Not all of the super-rich are net tax recipients, but not all very low-wage workers or indigents are net tax recipients either. You only asked where they were clustered.

gc on net tax recipients: “3 + 4 [gov’t employees and contractors] are getting paid to do a job by the government. This is very different than receiving an entitlement or a government service that they have not paid taxes for.”

gc, what portion of the federal and state bureaucracy do you earnestly believe performs a useful service for which people should be willing to pay them? If they created a Federal Department of Mud-Pies and employed indigent people making mud-pies all day for $20/hr, would you be willing to say anything like the following?

“They are receiving money from the government because they have paid the government/taxpayer in labor rather than in capital (i.e. taxes).”

If the “services” people are being paid for are useless, then I do not see how they are different in any relevant sense from straight-up welfare recipients—except insofar as the welfare recipients are more honest and more poorly paid. If the “services” are being paid at exorbitantly high rates because of political pull or government restriction of competition (as is often the case in government contracts), the surplus extracted is also different in no relevant sense from a welfare check, except again that it is more dishonest.

“Unless you believe the government should not fund any services, we can junk these two categories.”

Unless you believe that the government should fund every existing service at the level that it currently funds it, we cannot. Pretending that the expanse of useless government programs and services isn’t relevant to the size of government spending is an absolutely ludicrous move.

“Category 4 in particular usually doesn’t receive all their revenue from the government.”

Do you need to receive all your revenue from the government to be a net tax recipient? Why?

“5 have paid taxes their whole lives. Yes, they are net drains w.r.t. SS, and yes, I support privatizing SS, but they have not been net tax recipients their whole lives.”

So? You didn’t ask who has been a net tax recipient their whole lives. You asked who is a net tax recipient now. Social Security is far and away the largest single

“6 is laughable. The super rich are net tax recipients?? Ever look at the fraction of income taxes paid by the top 5% recently? It’s more than 50% of the nation’s total take.”

Come on, gc, you’re smarter than this. The amount that they pay out in income tax—let alone the percentage of aggregate income taxe receipts they pay, is irrelevant. What’s relevant is whether they receive more than they pay, or pay more than they receive. There are plenty of super-rich people who pay more than they receive in taxes. But there are also plenty who receive much more than they pay. This varies, in part, by the industries from which they make their money: the corporate welfare budget is over $65,000,000,000.00 / year in direct subsidies and costs taxpayers somewhere on the order of $300,000,000,0

But why acknowledge such a stupid claim? Receiving a net tax subsidy only constitutes aggression if you have substantial control over the extraction of taxes in the first place. Some people who receive net tax subsidies (executives of large agribusiness operations, some government employees, etc.) do have some control and so can be blamed. Others (non-citizens, for one) have very little control over it.

The aggression is taxation, not the receiving of a net subsidy. Do you think it would be better if everyone were a net taxpayer?

bolton: “The libertarian does not own the border.”

I have no idea what this means. Nobody “owns the border”, because the border is a line with no width, not a plot of property. If you mean that no libertarian owns any property that sits along a point of entry to the United States, I have no idea why you think this. There are plenty of libertarians, e.g., who live along the coast or in Southern California. I’d be glad to buy a strip of land along the border myself for the sole purpose of letting immigrants pass safely into the country: I’d be doing a humanitarian service, and making a mint in the process. But of course you don’t think I should be able to do that. If you did, you would just support enforcing trespassing law, not blanket immigration restrictions. So quit pretending like you care about property rights: the only property rights you care about is the right to do something that furthers your own policy goals.

gc: “IS THERE OR IS THERE NOT such a thing as a net-tax recipient?”

Sure.

gc: “If there is, would you agree or disagree that they are concentrated among the uneducated and unskilled?”

No, of course not. There are four major groups that net tax recipients are dispersed across:

1. The indigent
2. Very low-income workers
3. Government employees
4. Government contractors
5. Old people
6. The super-rich

… among others. You’ve got to remember that by far the largest entitlement program in the United States (Social Security) is both collected and dispersed regressively, that the various levels of government employ millions of people, most of whom are educated professionals and most of whom go on to perform no valuable services whatsoever, at an average salary of $56,000 / year, that the corporate welfare budget typically meets or exceeds all the spending on all low-income entitlement programs combined, etc.

Anyway, again, what has this got to do with immigration? Do you think that being net tax recipients is a good reason to forcibly expel Con-Agra executives, or retirees, or for that matter native workers with little education and few marketable skills, from the country? If not, then why is it a reason to do the same thing to low-income immigrants—instead of, say, lobbying for reform in the tax and welfare systems?

Me: “Now tell me why I don’t have the right to [disregard the opinion of 60% of the country on my own property]”

The Great Khan responds: “For the same reason I cannot move next to you and invite several hundred of my friends that enjoy target practice with their Smith & Wessons and systematically pick off every single one of you wackos. Then rightfully take over your property and claim it as mine. DUH you dolt.”

You are aware of the difference between aggression and peaceful enjoyment of property, aren’t you? I’m not talking about whether or not I have the right to use my property to kill you and steal your stuff. (Do you think that I would have that right if a supermajority of my neighbors agreed with me?) I’m asking you to tell me why I don’t have the right to ignore the opinion of the supermajority of my neighbors as to who I can invite to peacefully stay on my own property while he works in town.

It’s my property, not yours, and I’m not messing with your stuff. So where do you get the right to call up the police and impose the demands of my neighbors on how I use my property?

bolton: “If it is acknowledged that going on net public subsidy is aggression on the net taxpayer or the citizenry, …”

But why acknowledge such a stupid claim? Receiving a net tax subsidy only constitutes aggression if you have substantial control over the extraction of taxes in the first place. Some people who receive net tax subsidies (executives of large agribusiness operations, some government employees, etc.) do have some control and so can be blamed. Others (non-citizen

Blowhard likes short responses. So let’s try it again:

“Another try: 60-80% of Americans think immigration rates are already too high. Now imagine how many of them would object to any open-borders proposal. Now: are you really going to say that you think it’s fine to overrule their preference in this matter?”

On my own property? Yes, of course I do.

Now tell me why I don’t have the right to do so.

Razib: ‘If you give them the word “god” most people would have an “idea” somewhere around the middle of the sphere, that is, an MRI would show the same general image, they would react in the same way to prayer or ritual, etc.’

But the conclusion that the ordinary people are having the same idea cross-culturally only follows from the evidence given if having the same electrochemical reactions in the brain and the same individual behavior constitute (or at least entail) having the same idea.

But they don’t, at least, not all the time.

If you could look at all the individual behavior and the brain processes and so on of a medieval peasant and her counterpart on Twin Earth (which is identical to Earth except that the seas, lakes, rivers, etc. are all filled with a substance XYZ, which is chemically very different from H2O but looks, tastes, feels, functions, etc. the same under ordinary circumstances) having to do with the word “water,” you would no doubt see exactly the same thing in both cases. But that doesn’t mean that they mean the same thing when they say the word “water”: the Earthling peasant means the stuff that turns out to be H2O, and the Twin Earthling means the stuff that turns out to be XYZ.

The parallels you might draw between this, and the deference over, e.g., the nature of rituals, matters of theological doctrine, etc. that the laity offer to theological elites (whether formal or informal), should be obvious.

Cut the pie any way you like, meanings just ain’t in the head.

“If we assume that an accurate top-down approach to the net benefit question is intractable, that the results largely hinge on biases and subjective considerations of benefit vs. cost, then I think that this should become a question settled by vote.”

You’re no longer talking about people deciding what to do with their own property. You are talking about a gang made up of the majority of people telling individual people in the minority what they can and cannot do with their own property. The land that I’m living on is my land, not yours and not the government’s.

aleph0: “It seems pretty clear to me that the simplest way to deal with illegal immigration is to crack down on employers.”

Awesome! So we can all go through even more government-inflicted red tape in the process of getting a job! This is sure to improve our economic well-being.

barlow: “That unskilled immigrants pay taxes is largely immaterial, because they pay so little. How much in taxes do you think someone making $7 an hour is paying?”

Quite a bit, actually. If you don’t think that low-income workers pay a hell of a lot of money in taxes it can only be because you are ignoring the (regressive) FICA tax and the (regressive) state and local taxes that nearly all of us pay.

But in any case, what has this got to do with immigration? The problems that you are citing, even where they are genuine, are problems common to all low-income workers, as a result of the tax structure that the government inflicts on us. If that’s a reason to forcibly exclude low-income immigrants, why isn’t it a reason to forcibly expel all low-income workers? If it isn’t a reason to expel all low-income workers, then why aren’t you working on reforming tax law rather than making immigration law even more draconian?