“It comes down to a question of whether property owners have a right to deny access to their land to others, arbitrarily . . .”

No, it does not come down to that at all. I am quite happy to welcome undocumented immigrants onto my property; so what it comes down to is a question of whether or not other people, who do not own my property, have a right to deny access to my land to others, arbitrarily. Of course they do not. They have no right to do anything but keep their preferences, and their borders, on their own property, not on mine.

“This may well be true; but if so it actually renders all argument irrelevant since their right to have any policy- including open borders- unsupportable. For instance, an illegitimate state operating an open borders policy is enacting unjust domain over the properties of its citizens-”

Horsefeathers, sir. This is absurd.

Of course you are right that in my view, no nation-state can legitimately have any policy at all, because no nation-state can legitimately exist. But the mistake here is in trying to treat political demands for amnesty or open borders as if they were demands for an active policy in the first place. They are not demands for government action; they are specifically demands for a structured sort of in-action, and they cannot reasonably be described as “actions of an illegitimate State against its oppressed citizens.” They are not impositions of “unjust domain over the properties of its citizens” because the property rights of a states’ citizens don’t include the right to force immigrants off of other people’s property in the neighborhood. Nothing is being imposed upon them, any more than the absence of war is somehow the political imposition of “peace” on unwilling civilians; or, at least, if you are going to claim that a state without border restrictions “is enacting unjust domain over the properties of its citizens” in virtue of its lack of border restrictions, then you will have to tell me whose property rights are being restricted by the open borders, and how they are being restricted by government’s simple refusal to harass or detain international migrants.

[Google Reader comment on shared article Nick Hogan Jailed for 6 Months.]

It is certainly evil to imprison a man for allowing smoking on his own damn property. However, I certainly don’t know why I am supposed to wax indignant at either of the following cases in which people who did real damage were acquitted:

“Two anti-nuclear protesters who entered a dockyard planning to disarm one of Britain’s Trident submarines with an axe were yesterday cleared of conspiracy to cause criminal damage.”

“Four women walked free from Liverpool Crown Court yesterday after a jury found them not guilty of criminal charges despite their admission that they did more than pounds 1.5m worth of damage to a Hawk warplane.”

Well. Good for them. I’m glad they are free. Nobody should be imprisoned for damaging the war machines of government militaries. Those war machines are used to threaten or inflict death on innocent people throughout the world, and the government militaries that purchase and maintain them are hyperviolent criminal organizations, funded by coercion and habitually dealing out destruction. Government militaries have no legitimate property rights to anything, and where there’s no property rights there are no identifiable victims. Where there’s no victim, there’s no crime.

The people who engaged in these direct actions against government “property” (property in name only, derived entirely from coercive taxation) — these people, I say, are heroes, not criminals, and shouldn’t be locked up for even a minute. The more people can get away with disabling or destroying the State’s hideous war machines, the better.

I’m sorry, I’m confused. What’s so heroic about vandalism and petty thieving of other people’s property?

1. I don’t know. It probably depends on the context and the intent with which it was done.

2. No. Being offended doesn’t give you the right to trash or steal somebody else’s private property.

3. No. I generally don’t fly flags at all.

4. No.

5. Yes, and he should pay damages to the barkeep for the destruction of property.

6. No, not unless Jesus stood for vandalism and petty thieving. I don’t think that He did.

Jonathan Payne states “There is a reason for the laws that govern the display of our flag.” But in fact — in spite of what the media have repeatedly, inaccurately claimed — there are no laws that regulate how private citizens can or cannot display an American flag on their own property. The Federal Flag Code (4 U.S.C. §§ 4-10) offers only a set of voluntary guidelines “for the use of such civilians or civilian groups or organizations as may not be required to conform with regulations promulgated by one or more executive departments of the Government of the United States” (4 U.S.C. § 5). It has no enforcement section and assigns no penalties. Unless you are employed by the military or a government agency, there is no federal agency with the authority to impose binding regulations on how you, as a private citizen, display a flag on your own private property.

Ray,

What law would the barkeep face charges under? The Federal Flag Code (4 U.S.C. §§ 4-10) has no enforcement section and defines no penalties. The rules for the time, occassion, position, and manner of display of the flag are voluntary guidelines “for the use of such civilians or civilian groups or organizations as may not be required to conform with regulations promulgated by one or more executive departments of the Government of the United States” (4 U.S.C. § 5). Unless you are in the military or part of a government agency, there is no federal agency that has the authority to impose any binding rules on how you can or cannot display a United States flag on your own private property.

Leland,

So, on your view, as a conservative, it’s O.K. for “a real American hero” to barge into somebody else’s place of business with a combat knife, cut up their private property, and then steal their flag from their own private flag pole?

The chills I get from this video don’t feel like “pride.”

Obviously his partnership with the anti-war extreme left places him in a natural position of suspicion, but since he doesn’t write on a broad range of topics it’s hard to tell if he partakes fully of the social-anarchist philosophy of just picks and chooses.

Justin Raimondo has been a libertarian activist for at least two and a half decades now and, while he has been focusing very heavily on anti-war activism for the last ten or so, his positions on a lot of issues aren’t hard to find if you go looking for them. It is not that he is “picking and choosing” elements of social anarchism to follow. It’s just that he believes in a different political theory, specifically anarcho-capitalism in the tradition of Murray Rothbard, in its paleolibertarian form. Anarcho-capitalists are all pro-private property — indeed private property rights are the basis of their entire social philosophy — and paleolibertarians, like paleoconservatives, generally tend to believe in some fairly strong form of cultural nationalism.

Anarcho-capitalism has some important similarities with what is usually called social anarchism (hence the “anarcho”) and also some important differences (mainly having to do with private property rights, natch); it has even more similarities with individualist anarchism. But it is its own thing, and Raimondo is fairly closely identified with it, unless something changed while I wasn’t looking.

As typified by Justin Raimondo, they are the anti-property, anti-war and anti-nationalist element of libertarianism.

Dude, Justin Raimondo is a lot of things, but do you have any evidence at all, in print or in other media, that Justin Raimondo is either “anti-property” or “anti-nationalist”? If so, what is this evidence and where can I find it?

Please also note that “anti-property” and “anti-nationalist” are not synonyms for “extremist” or “anarchist” or “advocate for views I strongly disagree with.” I already know that he’s an extremist and I already know that he’s an anarchist and I also already know that he has many beliefs you would disagree with. But I am interested to know where you came up with the specific accusations that this Buchananite paleolibertarian is “anti-property” and “anti-nationalist.”