Mexican Voters in the U.S. Vote for More Free Market Candidate

Robert Higgs - 7/7/2006

The typical American is (ideologically) sick, and the disease is nationalism. The illness is virulent, and it may prove to be terminal. (Indeed, for all too many people, here and abroad, it has proved to be terminal already.)

Keith Halderman - 7/7/2006

I also agree with you on the immigration issue. If someone has a truly individualist orientation towards life and politics then where a person was originally born is of no more import than the color of someone’s skin. I also think you are correct about the potential for shifting society towards a more libertarian position through working with new arrivals. They are on the bottom looking for opportunity and it is they who have the most to gain from a free society. I think that libertarian philosophy is clear cut on this issue and it is on our side.

Politically, however, I can see why some libertarians what to run away from this issue. When I used to work the county fair for the party I gave many many Nolan Quizzes and the question that had the least positive response was the immigration question. Even, ending the war on people who use certain kinds of drugs polled much better.

Craig J. Bolton - 7/6/2006

It doesn't sound like we disagree, and, hence, my remarks could not have been pointed toward you. Try some of our "paleo-libertarians" for a reference point.

Robert Higgs - 7/5/2006

Naturally the rest of us appreciate your vote of confidence in our having our heads screwed on wrongly, but you may have jumped to conclusions too quickly. I for one (though I know of many others) am adamantly opposed to all attacks on Mexicans or others who wish to come to the United States to work or for any other peaceful purpose. I regard the actions of the U.S. government to use violence against these people, who merely by coming here have violated no one's just rights, to be completely unjustified, a clear example of the sort of aggression libertarians are supposed to oppose in principle.

It does not serve for a professed libertarian to object that the newcomers will go on welfare, attend public schools, etc. The just position is to oppose such welfare and public schooling for EVERYBODY, native born and newcomer alike, because it amounts to theft. Likewise for the newcomers voting for predatory politicians (is there any other kind?), etc. The just position is to oppose all political action by which ANYBODY violates the just rights of ANYBODY else; if we had a non-tyrannical government, voting wouldn't matter. As for the newcomers polluting the culture and so forth, that objection is pure nonsense: none of us "owns" the culture, and no Mexican toiling in the lettuce field can, or wishes to, make any native-born American change his language or other cultural affinities. As you say, these people take great risks and often bear great costs to come to the United States, and almost always to do so in order to work here.

I suppose libertarians are entitled to their racism if that is what they cherish, but they are wrong to look to the government to bring force to bear against persons whose only offense is to have been born in the "wrong" ethnic group or on the "wrong" side of a line an armed gang has drawn in the dirt. (What claptrap anyhow. Has anybody checked out the native-born riff-raff lately? Not exactly a prize-winning herd, in my humble opinion.)

Craig J. Bolton - 7/5/2006

I think that Americans, particularly purportedly libertarian Americans, need to get a clue about the "illegal immigration" situation. The "Mexicans" who are in the U.S. as illegals have gone to great expense, and often undertaken great personal danger and hardship, to get here. They want to get here because they want to work and make a living without paying off ever corrupt bureaucrat in sight [something that is still not easy in Mexico, even after the PANist reforms]. What do you think their political disposition is going to be?

There is a real opportunity here to obtain literally millions of new libertarian activists and KEEP MANY OF THEM IN THIS COUNTRY PERMANENTLY if certain libertarians would just give up their failed Old Right racist orientations and wake up to existing realities. As it is, these purported defenders of liberty are rapidly turning yet another group of people against liberty. [The only person I know who is adamently to the contrary is Bumper Hornberger, but then Bumper is about the only person active on the political scene today that routinely has his head screwed on right.]