A Common Objection I've Seen Against Stef's Arguments on Immigration

[Three]

Please share if valuable. Medium article: 

https://medium.com/@joelpatterson_52315/what-libertarians-really-need-to-understand-about-the-immigration-debate-ef2998589c18




There’s a rather interesting objection I’ve heard in response to some of the arguments Stefan Molyneux has made in videos such as, “What Pisses Me Off About The Migrant Crisis”. It’s an objection that I’ve seen frequently enough that I think it deserves a post about it.

 

The objection goes like this:
 

“Stef talks about the terrible consequences of open borders in a welfare state. He says the mass importation of millions of people who are part of a culture that is antithetical to western values will result in a bloodbath, not assimilation, particularly because the welfare state allows for these little isolated communities wherein nobody has to adapt to the native culture at all, which would be required to some degree in order to enter into the job market.
 

In other words, Stef is saying the consequences will be bad. But, Stef has also said that, “consequences don’t matter, only principles” and it is a violation of the non aggression principle to close the borders. So, isn’t Stef being hypocritical? “

(See Post Debate Review - Anarchism Versus Minarchism for more on principles.)

 

Admittedly, I am exaggerating a little bit. The objections I’ve read like this aren’t nearly as humble, curious, or articulate. But besides that, why is this objection wrong?

Well, the first and most common mistake I see people make when they’re criticizing Stef is that they ignore context. 

 

This is not a minor error. This is like misreading the nutritionist’s recommendations so that you think it says to take 500 grams of a supplement, rather than 500mg and then declaring the nutritionist is “trying to get people killed!”


It shows a considerable lack of attention to detail.
 

This is an important distinction. The people who are making the argument from consequences are the CEO’s , the leftists, and the politicians who are saying, ‘The most effective way to help the migrants would be to take them in. Taking in the migrants will have good consequences for the economy. Therefore, we should take in the migrants.”

 

Talking about consequences is entirely appropriate when you are rebutting an argument from consequences. Stef is rebutting this mainstream narrative by saying, “Actually, taking the migrants in is not the most effective way to help them, nor will taking in the migrants who hold an opposing culture benefit society and here’s the data that shows why.’ (See What Pisses Me Off About The Migrant Crisis)

 

People imagine that Stef, by simply pointing out these facts, is making a leap to saying,

“Therefore, we should close the borders because the consequences of open borders would be bad.”
 

It is true that Stef has said that there would be practical consequences to halting the mass importation of child hostile cultures into the United States that would be beneficial, despite the fact that closing the borders would be a violation of the nonaggression principle. 




 

“If the path to a free society requires friendly parents and if there are pouring into America hundreds and hundreds or thousands, if not millions of child unfriendly or child hostile cultures and if Donald Trump can put a stop to that, then that buys some time to convince people closer to the child friendly paradigm to change their behavior so that a more peaceful society can come about.

I don’t view Donald Trump as someone who is going to bring about a free society, but if Donald Trump can buy enough time for the peaceful parenting message to spread against the massive influx of child unfriendly cultures and histories coming into america, which not only means that there are more people who are coming in who are child hostile, but it also means that the quality of the people’s childhoods and adult lives become tax slaves to child unfriendly cultures, the quality of families declines even for the people who are native. ( See Stefan Molyneux Podcast 3174 for full quote. )

 

But, because there’s a violation of the non aggression principle either way, since opening the borders also violates freedom of association due to the fact that so many illegal immigrants take welfare, it doesn’t matter. There’s no ideal short term moral solution to the problem and because of this all you can do is look at the practicality of each option and the evidence seems to suggest that closing the borders would result in less force that allowing them to be open. (See Are Libertarians Wrong About Immigration)

 

“People say if people are not allowed to come into the country, then that is the initiation of the use of force. I completely agree with that. I completely and totally agree with that. However, if the actions of someone by entering a particular area results in the greater initiation of force, then it’s not as simple as people think.

The problem is that people are showing it in isolation. 
 

So, let me give you a tiny example. If I go into my own house, I am not initiating the use of force. If some guy with a gun wants to come into my house, well, guess what? He’s initiating the use of force. If he comes in while I’m sleeping and steals from me he is initiating the use of force. 
 

Now, if someone comes into my house because I’ve invited them and we’re going to play Yahtzee and Monopoly or he’s going to fix my toilet because I had Indian food, then he’s coming into my house voluntarily and he’s not initiating the use of force and neither are his actions initiating the use of force against me. 

 

So, the reality is that statistically, by and large and by far both legal and illegal immigrants coming into America vastly increase the use of force in America. And so, simply by looking at putting putting a barrier around america to prevent people from coming into america and saying, ‘Well, that’s the only initiation of force that matters’ That’s ridiculous. 
 

There’s a little thing called the welfare state, which I believe I’ve seen a few Libertarians talk about. But, immigrants use welfare at vastly higher rates than domestic citizens. So, 51% of immigrants are using the welfare state, compared to 30% for natives. And those natives include high utilizers of the welfare state such as blacks and hispanics. 

 

 “Immigrants don’t consume more public benefits than natives; in fact, they use fewer. Indeed, they have kept Social Security afloat, even though they will never get a dime from the system. They don’t love liberty less: they poll in as more libertarian.”- Jeffrey Tucker Among illegal immigrants, it’s even higher. It’s more than twice the rate of natives. So, the reality is and this is a basic mathematical reality that you can only escape by sticking your head so far up your ass that you can drill though your nipples and call them telescopes. The reality is that immigrants in general, on average, coming into america are both going to use, be dependent on, and vote for increases in the welfare state.
 

If you care about the welfare state, then you need to diminish the number of people on the welfare state. This is not brain surgery. People do not vote to get rid of or even intellectually oppose that which puts bread on their table and puts a roof over their heads that is necessary for their survival. And the fact that this is even debatable or even debated, I don;t even know what to say.

 

It’s very hard to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends on him not understanding something. And when you bring a bunch of people in with no history of free market thinking in their culture, and for illegal immigrants in particularly, get on welfare at a rate of 62%, those people in order to survive in america require massive amounts of government spending in America and indeed the only reason they can stay in America, as Dr. Steven Camarota has pointed out on this show, is by voting for an ever increasing welfare state.
 

When, you get people coming in to a country who can only survive and live in that country because of government spending, what do you think they’re going to vote for? An expansion of extraction of government power? “

Still, even if closing closing the borders would result in less force than allowing them to be open there’s a difference between saying, 
 

“If open borders, the consequences will not be good”

vs

“ Because the consequences will not be good if we open borders we SHOULD do X, such as close the borders or vote for Donald Trump.”
 

When Stef says things like consequences don’t matter he was saying that the validity of a moral theory cannot be determined based on its outcome. If the consequences to freeing the slaves are negative, that is irrelevant because slavery is immoral. 

 

Context is key. Criticizing the government program called open borders is not by default endorsing a statist solution to the problem. We’re merely pointing out the facts. However, whenever you start to criticize open borders as the government program it truly is people, usually Libertarians, without giving your argument a moment’s thought will jump to the conclusion that you must saying, “I think we should shoot people!” 
 

The goal is not to impact statist policies, but to impact parenting. The show really hasn’t changed that much. 

“Am I in support of closing the borders? I’m not sure what that would even mean? Because that would mean to say that I am in support of a government doing something effective towards whatever end I might have, which would be to accept that the government could do something competently”- (Stefan Molyneux Are Libertarians Wrong About Immigration?)

 

[rosencrantz]

Culturally homogenous Western societies tend to improve in absence of war and natural disasters. The standard of living increases, the power of government shrinks (if it was big to begin with) and productivity soars. Anybody with an IQ over idiocy can understand and follow the Western values. The problem is not of understanding but one of doing. There seem to be biological factors that hold back societies from implementing Western values. 
The idea of freedom and the implementation requires certain conditions that cannot be created by freedom itself. If these conditions are not met the society will be unfree forever.

[Mister Mister]

When you are in a system of coercion, it's not so simple to just act on principle.

I don't believe Stef has ever said "we should close the borders".  He doesn't see it as his role to endorse political candidates or advocate for certain policies.

 

Stef often confuses libertarians by arguing from "inside the matrix", for example on this issue, the Eric Gardner situation, Beau Bergdahl, and so on.  This is a very important perspective I've realized.  If a government claims that it's power over you is for your own benefit, or some national interest, then it's important to point out where it fails.  For example, the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal isn't that important to me in the larger context of things, but considering that she also has defended NSA spying and is vying for the highest office in the land, it is very relevant.

  In the same way, with regards to immigration - if we're not going to have a country, that's great!  Let's get rid of the Income Tax and stop enforcing all the other BS laws, and we can flourish, under a Confederation of States.  But if we are going to have a country, which claims to take taxes from everyone for some greater good, but then allows millions and millions of people to come use a system they haven't paid into, that is a recipe for disaster. 

Most libertarians want to look at it as a single issue, thinking "obviously restrictions on immigration are the initiation of force, so there should be no restrictions on immigration", but what they are missing is that a free society WOULD place restrictions on immigration, which are being over-ridden by the welfare state.  So most libertarians say "well fine, but let's just focus on getting rid of the welfare state instead of immigration", which sounds fine and dandy, but people have been trying to do that to no avail for the last 60 years, and with each generation more entrenched it gets harder.  So there is no easy answer to this issue, but we just have to get to a point where we can talk about it seriously, and get past the fear of the curse of "racist".  I hope that makes some sense