America needs a new party, one that will — in the present emergency — bravely rise to the defense of the republic and the grand alliance of the free nations which it leads. It needs a party of economic sanity, which will not destroy the basis of our livelihood through either a combination of trade war and immigration restriction, or top-down suppression of business. It needs a party of humanity, which rejects tribalism, not only for the harm it inflicts upon its targets but for the moral and intellectual degradation it infests within the minds and hearts of its converts. It needs a party of liberty, one which will defend not only the borders of freedom, but the ideas and institutions that make freedom possible.
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New political parties are always descending on America, but only ever land in Europe.
> which rejects tribalism
Good f*king luck on that mate.
I don’t think Zubrin has been paying attention.
I remain unconvinced that immigration restriction will “destroy our livelihood.” We have a decreasing need for unskilled labor, and we’re a broke welfare state, and immigrants (and their children) are a huge drain on resources. Somehow the USA managed to get along fine without millions of illegal aliens, and with lower rates of immigration.
Regarding “tribalism”: I don’t think it’s “tribal” to note that liberty is an American tradition, and that recent immigrants skew statist in their political preferences. I don’t think allowing immigration by anti-libertarians serves the cause of liberty.
“It needs a party of humanity, which rejects tribalism,”
Tribalism is the basis of humanity Mr. Proggressive.
So, the E.U. then.
In the US we’re always in need of a party that has exactly my positions.
America desperately needs a conservative party. There is nothing remotely “conservative” about the current administration.
America needs a new leader, one that will — in the present emergency — bravely rise to the defense of the republic and the grand alliance of the free nations which it leads. It needs a leader of economic sanity, which will not destroy the basis of our livelihood through either a combination of trade war and immigration restriction, or top-down suppression of business. It needs a leader of humanity, which rejects tribalism, not only for the harm it inflicts upon its targets but for the moral and intellectual degradation it infests within the minds and hearts of its converts. It needs a leader of liberty, one which will defend not only the borders of freedom, but the ideas and institutions that make freedom possible.
FTFY
The “Grand Alliance” can exert a little more effort on its own behalf, and stop hiding behind the US military. We’ve been supporting Europe for 70 years against the threat of first the Soviet Union and now Russia, and France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Britain need to step up to the plate.
I often find myself at odds with my libertarian brethren over immigration, not in the theoretical sense, but the practical.
I understand and tentatively agree with a relatively open immigration system under conditions of free trade and zero welfare state.
But we don’t live in that world. It is widely accepted among libertarians that you can’t have both open borders and a welfare state. They then propose open borders. We have a welfare state.
This smacks of “starve the beast” logic. I say eliminate the welfare state first, then and only then can we look to immigration reform. So long as we have these conditions, the incentives are wrong for immigration.
Libertarians being as they are, a hive of contrarians, it’s not as if we get our ideas passed. The only chance we have to pass something is if it happens to align with another party’s interests. Mass immigration is only in the interest of the Dems/Labour/etc. Those parties will only grow the welfare state. There is no way to loosen immigration restrictions in the real world without growing the welfare state, driving up the deficit and national debt, and a host of other non-libertarian ends.
American Leftards need to learn that they managed to lose! Given the electoral college system, Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but he is still the President. And the two Houses of Congress are ful of Republicans, elected by americans. Freedom-lovers have had to tolerate a Washington that keeps growing for years now. If he wants to join the Tea Party, good luck to him!
I fail to see how the importation of millions of people who are ideologically opposed to freedom and are unlikely to integrate is going to help anything other than create the conditions for another Ulster.
Indeed – all we need is the right party, and then everything will be great.
The English-speaking world mostly inherits our two-party system; the US certainly does. The last time a new party displaced an existing one there was the 1850s decade, when the Republicans displaced the Whigs – a good thing on the whole IMHO but do recall what all happened in the first half of the next decade (i.e. ‘careful what you wish for’).
The recent election seems, at points in 2016, as likely a time as any for a new party in the US to emerge – that is, still not very likely at all. The two or three ‘third parties’ that offered themselves to the public all had obvious issues.
In the UK, Labour replaced the Liberals in the inter-war years and the latter failed to reverse it when they had the opportunity in the 80s. Opportunities are rare, and it’s not easy to turn them into historic upsets.
The whole piece has the stench about it of a leftist trying to use libertarian ideas to promote the cause of the left.
Meanwhile in the real world of impromptu international re-location we find that a Moroccan import into Belgium is being charged with 230 counts of rape over a two year period and an 18 year old imported Somali free-spirit gained entry to a German old folks home and forcibly sodomised two frail old men. Who foolishly thought to live out their last days in peace in such a home. Silly old people. Still they were probably Nazis eh.
Patrick Crozier writes: I fail to see how the importation of millions of people who are ideologically opposed to freedom and are unlikely to integrate is going to help anything other than create the conditions for another Ulster.
I re-read the article and I don’t see Zubrin calling for unfettered immigration with no tests, vetting, etc. And there is nothing in what I would call genuine liberalism (as opposed to what it means to Americans since the mis-named Progressive Era) that requires such unfettered access. By the way, there have been moral panics almost from the day of the founding of the Republic when one group or another was wetting its trousers over this or that group entering the US. Yellow peril from China? Check. Vietnamese Boat People being potential commie intruders? Check. Irish immigrants being drunkards and political hooligans ruining America? Check. Germans, Swedes, Poles, Russians, Italians (nooooo!), Puerto Ricans, Haitans…..
The broader point of Zubrin’s article is this, that given the nativism of Trump, and the increasingly unhinged collectivism of the Dems, that this creates a gap for small government politics which is pro-market, pro-free trade and which upholds the intent of the Founders. That this should prompt such pushback and sneers on the comment thread of Samizdata is depressing, but a sign of the times.
Sorry if that sounds ungracious.
The dinosaurs have to die out before the little mammals rise to power (or the Libertarian lack of it). For such to get into the fray prematurely will simply lead to the little creatures getting stomped–or worse used as useful idiots in the Dinosaur Wars.
Wait a minute… 😛
Joking aside, JP has a point. There must be a realistic middle ground between xenophobia and free-for-all open borders. FWIW though, I don’t think that Trump and his voters are very far from that middle ground, the wailing on the Left notwithstanding.
As to political parties, the problem with the quote is the apparent assumption that parties, their official names and platforms are of any real political significance. What really matters in a democracy is the voters and their positions. The popular-vote results in the 2016 election aside, the part of the US electorate who did bother to vote is clearly divided between the positions held by Clinton et al, and those espoused by Trump and co. How a third party with positions differing from those two opposites would change that is unclear to say the least (not to mention that such a party already exists, but lets pretend it does not, as the author seemingly does).
Johnathan, You forgot muslims.
(quoting Pearce)
Zubrin reads himself into the Founders and comes away liking what he found. That this should prompt pushback and sneers at Samizdata or anywhere should be unsurprising for that reason alone. “Opposed to isolationism”, for instance? Hardly what one hears from John Adams:
Here are some more sneers at Zubrin:
(quoting Reason)
Indeed, atheists are definitely un-American. Right?
Terrible example. Assad was legitimate, non-jihadi ruler of Syria. The Syrian rebels are mostly illegitimate jihadis. While John Adams advises we stay the hell out of Syria, if we have to pick a side, Assad is by far the better one.
When one hears an assertion that the Kremlin chose to interfere in the election, one might be drawn to imagine KGB agents tampering with the voting machines, casting false ballots or destroying true ballots, coercing voters, et cetera. The linked article is rather more prosaic: Someone leaked the DNC’s emails, and we think the someone was Russian. I have elided two other links, one to a loony blog, and one self-cite.
And the people that make freedom possible. This is already a glaring omission; I expect it will only become worse with time.
I have been through 20 comments – and no has mentioned that the United States (with the partial exception of Louisiana) has a FIRST PAST THE POST electoral system.
With a First Past The Post election system a new party is very unlikely to work. You are just going to get a situation where the “new party” (like the Libertarian Party) gets a few Republican votes (“we get Democrat votes to” – pull the other one it has got bells on) and help the Democrats – as in New Hampshire.
By the way…….
If you can even win a Primary – you are not going to win a general election.
If “Do not vote for Trump he is a racist” (or whatever) did not work in most Primaries (ask Governor K of Ohio, although he won his own State Primary, – who then refused to go to the Convention in his State and then watched it vote for Mr Trump anyway) it is not going to work in a general election.
If you want to make a free market case – then do not go for the “Leader Principle” (the unelected “Leader” that one person on the comment thread wants), persuade people.
Go to PRIMARY voters and persuade them of the case for smaller government.
If you can do this – then do not waste time talking about a “new party”.
Go to the South Carolina Republican Primary (and so on) and convince them to vote for Ted Cruz not Donald Trump.
That is what you do if you actually want less government spending – if you want to get rid of Federal Government Departments and Agencies.
The dinosaurs have to die out before the little mammals rise to power (or the Libertarian lack of it). For such to get into the fray prematurely will simply lead to the little creatures getting stomped–or worse used as useful idiots in the Dinosaur Wars.
Mr Ecks, it really is a good idea to avoid mind-altering substances before interacting on this blog’s comment threads. Trust me on this.
Erik, that is a great quote from Adams, but again, there is nothing in the Zubrin article to suggest he supports chasing after foreign “dragons” unless they pose some clear and credible threat to the US.
Patrick, I did not forget Muslims in this case. Rather, it is to say that much of the criticism about immigration policy today as regarding those of that faith was and could have been cited by the locals over the past 200 years when considering other groups who were considered some sort of threat. Catholic immigrants were seen as a threat (remember it was considered ok to refer to them as Papists not all that long ago); Jews, needless to say, were under a cloud and subjected to discrimination, and so on.
haha, Zubrin sounds like a parody of a progressive, complete with the denial of human nature when it conflicts with his ideological grand narrative. The wealth creation and technological advancement capitalism brings is great, but capitalism, unless rooted in the foundations of Judeo-Christianity and/or national identity is always in danger of
becoming another species of nihilism.
Once again, wealth creation and technological advancement are great, but the health and success of a given social order is not, contrary to liberal ideology, reducible to a set of mere material indicators. Trump is (I hope) a necessary corrective to the excesses of liberalism.
Johnathan, Did the Catholics go around blowing stuff up?
Really? This nonsense tripe is worthy being the quote of the day? Tell me what’s xenophobic about a vetting process at our nation’s functional borders. And as to tribalism, “fair share”, the need to “give back”, and concerns about “income inequality”, hell, material “equality” in general are all forms of zero sum tribalism. Creating Jobs is not tribalism.
Only unlike those others faiths, Islam as believed and practiced by the majority of Muslims is a political doctrine, rather than a mere faith – much like communism, in fact. To this day immigrants to the US are granted its citizenship only after they declare, among other things, that they have never been members of a communist party. Which, of course, is not to say that any immigrant from a communist regime should be automatically rejected, but neither it is to say that they (or any other immigrant, for that matter) should be automatically accepted. And it is perfectly reasonable and fair to apply different levels of background checking and vetting to potential immigrants from different places.
The current situation following Trump’s EO is a mess, but that is hardly due to Trump’s actions alone. The previous administrations (including GWB and Obama) have at least as much of the blame to share for creating the mess that necessitated the step taken by Trump, however imperfectly the latter was thought and carried out. Plus, that EO is being effectively replaced with a new and revised one as we speak, so it’s not like the US borders are forever closed to any Muslim anywhere.
If this is your example of how the nativist impulse has unjustly excluded people from US shores, please remind yourself that all three groups have come here in their millions for decades, and all three groups continue to come here every day, with Muslim immigrants being the most numerous of any groups currently, and that our only exclusionary move has been to attempt to pause immigrants from six small countries so that we can find some way to at least make it more probable that we’re not admitting trained killers coming here explicitly to kill us.
Our current method involves asking them, and then pointedly not listening to their answers.
During the course of my children’s membership in their 15,000-student school district, our horrid exclusionary nativist impulses resulted in the admission of approximately 1400 foreign-born muslim students – most with very little english – which completely altered the tone and character and cost and effectiveness of our schools.
Crime and violence in the schools rose substantially – almost all of it committed by those new entrants. An entire new housing area was constructed with the explicit goal of allowing our new neighbors to comfortably live amongst each other with none of that nasty forced assimilation. In our rather prosperous suburb – chosen by Time mag several years ago as the best place to live – you don’t go there at night.
So, yeah, we’re just racist exclusionary screwballs. We need new leaders who can build even wider doors that we can throw open just like our current doors.
We do need another political party here, though – then we’d have two.
In the Middle East, America has recently been involved in so many wars, civil wars, insurrections, revolutions, “limited kinetic actions”, “operations”, “military interventions” and other rot recently that I’ve given up tracking the details. Off the top of my head, there’s been Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and the transnational matter of IS. Trump has such a painfully low bar to clear that if he only starts a war with Morocco he’ll still be ahead of the grade curve relative to Bush and Obama. He doesn’t seem in a hurry to pull America’s collective metaphorical dick out of the current blenders, either.
In a comparison between that and Adams, one of them strikes me as a lot more isolationist than the other.
So when Zubrin in the present circumstances, calls for a party opposed to isolationism, that, right, there, is something suggesting that he supports chasing after foreign dragons. America currently has a practically negative amount of isolationism, and Zubrin indicates he wants even less.
Johnathan Pearce (March 6, 2017 at 9:39 am): “…there have been moral panics almost from the day of the founding of the Republic … over this or that group entering the US…”
There have also been actual bans, some with actual consequences. The “gentleman’s agreement” by which a US-pressured Japan halted emigration to the US ensured that the pre-WWII Japanese-American population was wholly descended from the first post-Mejii-restoration generation, whereas the pre-WWII Japanese-Brazilian population was descended from the second and third generations. Despite being poorly treated during WWII, Japanese-Americans were loyal to the US (so obviously so, that, before the war’s end, attitudes to them in the US had quite changed around). Despite being well-treated in WWII (which Brazil joined), Japanese-Brazilians were fiercely loyal to Japan and disloyal to their new country. It has been said: if you wanted, without leaving the Americas, to study Japan just after the Mejii-restoration, you looked at Japanese-Americans of the 30s; if you wanted to study Japan in the 30s, you looked at Japanese-Brazilians of the 30s.
Paul Marks (March 6, 2017 at 11:06 am): “I have been through 20 comments – and no has mentioned that the United States (with the partial exception of Louisiana) has a FIRST PAST THE POST electoral system.”
Re my first comment (March 6, 2017 at 9:31 am), I see that as both supporting and resulting from the political culture I mention there. My consequential point is the same as yours IIUC. If you live in an English-speaking country, creating a new party (that must grow into an elected government to do its task) is usually the hard way to do things.
Erik, perhaps you can point to a passage in that article to back up your contention that Zubrin favours endless foreign wars. Because I cannot find it. Being anti-isolationist is not the same as being pro-intervention ad infinitum.
bobby b: During the course of my children’s membership in their 15,000-student school district, our horrid exclusionary nativist impulses resulted in the admission of approximately 1400 foreign-born muslim students – most with very little english – which completely altered the tone and character and cost and effectiveness of our schools.
And no doubt much the same was said by the locals when, for example, a bunch of Italians with shaky English landed in Ellis Island and then made their way to New York, etc.
Keep trying.
Actually, I do have my doubts as to whether it was so said by those locals. And even if it did, the real question is, are the local’s in bobby’s neck of the woods actually correct about this – despite the real possibility that those past locals in NY may had been incorrect.
Johnathan, Did the Catholics go around blowing stuff up?
Not as far as I know, but they were seen as a potential threat all the same. I recall that when JFK was elected POTUS in 1960, his Catholicism was seen as a potential barrier. And Catholics had all kinds of prejudice to contend with.
Then again, the vast majority of Muslims in the US don’t go around “blowing stuff up”, either. So the point I go back to is that yes, we need to vet immigrants and integrate them, but I don’t see this as being a qualitatively different issue than with other groups in the past. If you want to make the case that Muslims are a threat without precedent in Western history and cannot be integrated but must be excluded in toto or indeed expelled, passport or no, that’s quite a big call if you want to make it.
Alisa (March 6, 2017 at 10:19 am), +1 to your point that Trump ‘nativists’ may not be so very far from the middle ground: on this, as on several subjects, a quote from a Bill Clinton speech of the 90s labels you an extremist to his wife’s supporters today.
You may be wrong to write that “the part of the US electorate who did bother to vote is clearly divided between the positions held by Clinton et al, and those espoused by Trump and co.” Both before and after Brexit, Dominic Cummings describes the UK equivalent of that view as “a simple, powerful media story that is wrong and contributed to forecasting errors on Brexit”. Search that phrase in this link to find one example (read on from that phrase to the end of the comical “focus group” story). I think Dominic’s analysis has milage here in the UK. Is it possible it also applies in the USA?
Zubrin wrote:
Jonathan wrote:
Jonathan, isn’t the restriction to which Zubrin objects and the vetting that you accept are one and the same?
Alisa, I don’t know in full the answer to that question. I think Zubrin is objecting to restricting people simply because they are of a particular religious faith, not that they might, for example, have a criminal record or something like that.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I’m not making vague claims of “they’re strange, and they talk funny, and we don’t like them.” I’m pointing out that we brought them in to our community to the tune of a new ten percent of our school-age children, and then we experienced concrete costs and deleterious effects.
Our local county district court system had to set up a new division of juvenile court here in our city to handle the increased arrests. As a city, we had to hire eleven new Somali interpreters to work with our City Attorney Office (the prosecutors) to ensure the defendants were given their due process rights. Somali girls are regularly beaten up in the halls for not showing proper deference to the guys. Groups of Somali males regularly beat up non-Somalis. Non-Somali blacks suffer the worst time of it, as the Somalis despise them.
And my point is, our system brought them in and welcomed them and tried to help them, and it still does to this day. As of today, more and more are still coming in, and we’re finding places for them. If Trump’s initiatives continue, we’ll bring even more in, but with a bit more investigative assurance that they’re not actively seeking our downfall.
For a time I worked as a volunteer in our local legal aid group helping them navigate the American aid and legal systems, representing their kids in juvie court, getting their poor battered women out of horrid situations, and getting and keeping them employed.
And your response to this is a dismissive “you’re a racist”? How much Somali do you speak?
bobby b: I’m pointing out that we brought them in to our community to the tune of a new ten percent of our school-age children, and then we experienced concrete costs and deleterious effects.
And I pointed out that people in the US and other countries who brought in immigrants from other parts of the world also complained (well, some of them did anyway) about certain effects. What I am trying to state is that this sort of complaint about immigrants in a country built by immigrants is hardly new, and that the ironies seem to be rather lost on those making them at the time. Indeed, when I point out the irony, the response today seems to be along the lines of “yes, I know we were mean about Poles, Irish, Italians, Russians, Asians, Latinos…but this lot really are totally different”.
It is also worth noting that Trump hasn’t of course just directed his hire at Muslims, but against those from Mexico, making the kind of claims (often based on thin empirical data) that they are somehow more feckless, violent and so on than the locals. Perhaps a bit of empirical evidence might help on that:
And I haven’t accused you of being a racist. Easy with that trigger finger.
Pearce, I can’t point to any passage where Zubrin says “I favor endless foreign war”. I have already made my objection where I point to a passage where Zubrin calls for less isolationism at a time when America is embroiled in endless foreign war – which seems to indicate quite the pre-existing shortage of isolationism.
Jonathan, ‘restrict’ in this context means either a blanket ban, or some additional vetting. If Zubrin meant the former, than he merely repeated the histrionic straw-men claims made by the MSM and by people they managed to fool. If he meant the latter, than you and he seem to be in clear disagreement.
Ecks,
Here, let’s offer a bullet-biting exercise to those libertarians/classical liberals who would like to be distinguished from the left.
Take it as stipulated that it would be morally reprehensible and economically irrational for Walmart, Volkswagen and Google to fire all their African- and Arabian-ethnicity employees tomorrow and refuse to hire any in the future. (With severance pay and the like as set out in contracts.) Should it be legally permissible?
This being perhaps a cheap shot, let me risk a little credibility of my own by offering to bite another bullet offered previously in the thread, where Pearce wrote:
And most of these “panics” were broadly correct, just miscalibrated with regard to magnitude. The Italians brought mafia, the Swedes brought socialism, the Catholics brought social justice, many different groups all brought general tribalism and a lack of respect for the Rights of Englishmen as they were at the time, and along the way America definitely changed for the worse in several ways wrt rule of law and social cohesion, e.g. the Eighteenth Amendment may have been a poor choice, but the War on Drugs is a poor choice and obviously unconstitutional when one considers the precedent, all the harder to fix because it never officially happened with an amendment legalizing it.
In Pearce’s elision of the problems that earlier immigrant waves brought with them, implying the objections were baseless nonsense, I am reminded of the two-step with the 1965 Immigration Act:
1) “I promise it won’t change the composition of the country. Stop fearmongering with your paranoid fantasies.”
2) “Oops, looks like it changed the composition of the country. Well actually that is a good thing.”
Thanks Niall, I will look into it later.
Neither Trump nor America oppose entry of Muslims or Mexicans. We would like to see the number of all immigrants adjusted so that they do not disrupt our society, and that’s our right. We have no areas needing settlement or exploration. Admission to the US is, and should be, predicated upon how that admission will help America.
Trump asked that we vet more carefully the immigrants from six small countries. No other immigrants were affected. The bulk of the world’s Muslims reside outside of those countries.
Trump’s comments about Mexicans – nicely misinterpreted by the press and by you – also concerned the vetting process. Perhaps membership in Mara Salvatrucha ought to be a disqualifier. The wall is a recognition that we’ve had an open southern border for too long, and the sheer number of crossings is overwhelming.
In any case, here I am, an old conservative white guy in America, who speaks just enough Somali to get by and enough Spanglish to live in Mexico comfortably. I learned those precisely because we have a welcoming, immigrant-friendly culture – something that is lacking in most of the rest of the world. I doubt I could move to Mexico or Canada or France or GB tomorrow as a new resident – those countries protect their own nationalism far more than we do here.
Your claim that tribalism is a national malaise of America is weak. And when you opine that I’m mirroring those in past generations that hated Jews and Italians, yes, you’re calling me racist. Bang.
I’m confident that there are already five or six such parties, disagreeing on the finer points of doctrine, which would sweep to power if only someone would vote for them. Meanwhile back on Earth, to achieve a classical liberal paradise, you need voters who favour classical liberal values.
One of the best ways to achieve this is to restrict the franchise to the bourgeoisie. That’s what worked so well in the Victorian era. But these days more care would be required, as it would be necessary to separate the state nomenklatura from the private sector bourgeoisie. I think
(i) a nice, but quite modest, property qualification
(ii) exclusion of all state employees, and mendicants dependent on the state
(iii) exclusion of all foreign born folk, whether naturalised or not
should cover the ground adequately
The whole piece has the stench about it of a leftist trying to use libertarian ideas to promote the cause of the left.
Considering Zubrin’s brilliant attack on the Greens a few years ago and his championing of modern tech, space flight, and so on, that comment betrays a total lack of understanding of the man and the issue at hand.
Neither Trump nor America oppose entry of Muslims or Mexicans.
No, he just said there should be a temporary ban on ALL Muslim immigrants and made comments about Mexicans that, even when read in full context, were incendiary.
You can spin it as hard as you want, and actually Trump isn’t the monster he is portrayed (he’s a long-standing Democrat of ploddingly wrong views on a lot of economic issues, etc), but the general thrust of his stance on immigrants from certain quarters is overwhelmingly negative and zero sum. (Of course he is hardly unique in that regard.)
Erik, you say my remark implies that many of the fears about earlier immigrants were baseless.
Okay, no need for me to imply. I state as a fact that such fears were baseless, and could have been seen as such at the time, given the pressures on people to integrate, learn English, work hard, etc.
Of course, the most destructive immigrant groups were the early settlers who brought their flu, syphilis and gunpowder to North America, along with indentured slaves. Nothing that came behind them was in that class for sheer, bloody impact.
God, you guys bring out the lefty in me. And I resent you for doing that.
Why resent it, if it is in you? 😛
More to the point, Trump has been mouthing off great many things during his campaign – now that he’s President though, I suggest looking at what he is actually doing.
I think I might take my normal position of supporting the minority view here – Johnathan seems broadly correct.
A cursory analysis of the objections to the quote suggests most of them are anti-immigration, which seems a decidely odd view for a website associated with philosophies associated with individual freedom (whilst I support the right of nation states to exclude people, I tend to see this as something they should do to individuals, not groups – call me stupid, but identity politics is something that we oppose isn’t it?).
And I particularly like Erik’s justification of why previous immigrant groups to the US were justifiably feared (although I acknowledge the magnitude point):
The Italians may have brought the ‘mafia’, but it was the US that exported the mafia as an organised crime syndicate rather than a system of local strongmen extorting money back to Italy. And the mafia in the US were able to prosper because of a campaign led by white, middle-class people of impecable American ancestry (so at least twenty years… 😆 ) to ban alchohol, which led to the rise of organised crime (with different ethnic groups in different areas taking advantage – normally reflecting the ethnicity of the local criminals, which was bizarrely the local ethnic mix…). Somehow the very amendment responsible is mentioned, without noting this caused the mafia as we know them.
As for Swedes bringing socialism, you do know that there is a good tradition of English-language socialism. And the Germans had some thinkers on this. As did the French (earlier than anyone else). So perhaps you need to blame those damn literate people who could read this stuff. But no, we need to blame the great Swedish-American political leaders such as… As a serious question has there even been a Swedish-American politician of note?
And associating Catholicism with social justice is a new one on me – the Catholic church has such a proud history in this field (just ask any paid-up progressive (which Johnathan and me might have to now become by popular acclaim)). Now some Catholics may have fought for social justice (wierdly that sort of thing becomes tempting when a different denomination holds power and tries to exclude you), and some Catholic-dominated cities may be associated with this sort of movement, but I would suggest this reflects alienation from the system (the US has never been that inclusive in terms of power sharing – it managed to exclude a large chunk of the population due to pigment until the 1960s…) and the use of this by demagogues to establish their own power base (it always upsets ‘liberals’ when you point out social justice is just a form of populism 😉 ).
It is particularly naive to believe that there is a pure English-derived people who would support a particular ideal view of the US and were corrupted by immigrants and their ‘foreign’ ideas. I can say that because I live in the still English-dominated country of England, and we have had much more socialism and the like than the US could manage, before (I hasten to add) we brought in lots of cheap labour from other parts of our former Empire. So maybe Erik’s racial determinism of causes is a little bit simplistic?
“Considering Zubrin’s brilliant attack on the Greens a few years ago and his championing of modern tech, space flight, and so on, that comment betrays a total lack of understanding of the man and the issue at hand.”
Who cares about his tech-cred. If he is advocating open borders/mass migration from rotten cultures he is a chump. Importing millions of leftist voters never mind rapists and 18-30 yobs will destroy our culture and put paid to any chance of increased liberty and prosperity and space travel for Christ knows how long. Putting suicidal policies forward “because Libertarianism” plays into the hands of the left.
Perhaps Mr Pearce your own excessive consumption of the drug “Smug” has clouded what passes for reasoning with you. In addition to leaving you confused as to the relationship between metaphor, reality and pious delusion.
Watchman:
“It is particularly naive to believe that there is a pure English-derived people who would support a particular ideal view of the US and were corrupted by immigrants and their ‘foreign’ ideas.”
When the migrants “ideals” include monolithic carte-blanche support for the scum of socialism and/or a taste for rape, violence and corruption far exceeding anything found in the native population they can piss off back where they came from and no more should be allowed in –ever preferably.
” I can say that because I live in the still English-dominated country of England, and we have had much more socialism and the like than the US could manage, before (I hasten to add)”
We have marginally more socialism than the USA. Did you forget the New Deal, The Not-so-Great society, Medicad, endless alphabet agencies etc. No NHS or GPO/NCB in the USA but ever-advancing Cultural Marxism. It would be difficult to over estimate the pernicious evil of the American left. Or the degree to which the European and English middle-class leftist scum slavishly copy its habits. To the degree that the henna-ed hag (Laurie) Penny Dreadful speaks like a Yank in all but accent.
” we brought in lots of cheap labour from other parts of our former Empire.”
Not so much given the substantial numbers of followers of a particular cult who are on benefits and substantial numbers of other migrants whose low wages are being topped up by the UK taxpayer.
“So maybe Erik’s racial determinism of causes is a little bit simplistic?”
Don’t care if the problem stems from race/culture or a mixture of both. Troublemakers, wreckers, leftists, woman-hating cultists, thieves, yobs, zero-contributing seekers after a benefits lifestyle, street dossers, the shiftless, feckless, idle and criminal can all fuck off. We have enough of our own without help from outside.
Mr Ecks, I was going to think of a “smug” response, but given your hyperventilation and inability to engage with any points made without hurling streams of abuse, “go and fuck off” will suffice, maytey.
😈
Watchman: yes, those Scandinavians, they’re the worst!
About half of all past governors of my State of Minnesota.
(So, I guess that would be “no.” 😆 )
To return to the original program:
The “need” for a “New” party (in the U S).
We have just seen the centralized oligarchy of the Democrat party fragmented. Six years ago we saw the more regionally organized oligarchies of the Republican Party severely fractured, which left an opening into which new, or additional,” participants” have drifted from their disillusions with the other oligarchy.
Previously and currently the functions of political parties have been principally the delegation of powers to legislative and executive delegates, who (at the federal level) have ceded their functions and responsibilities to a Managerial Class within the Federal Administrative State.
These conditions leave us with the question of what are the functions of political parties as we simply go forward in time, instead of advance. That question would apply to any “new” party.
Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy will apply no less to any “new” party than it has to the structures of the old parties (ask Paul Marks).
Successful oligarchies are drawn from “Elites;” and successful Elites (not established by violence)are drawn from members who senses of obligations at least marginally exceed their senses of privilege and entitlements. We have no such identifiable Elites, Certainly none that the general populace, represented by the electorate, can identify.
Regionally, political parties, as now constituted continue to have a function, principally because of the effectiveness of the delegations of power that are channeled through them to state legislators and officers. The dispersed regional characteristics of the Republican Party oligarchies may be one reason for its regional successes as the more centralized oligarchy of the Democrat party was otherwise engaged in command and control.
In its fragments of diverse constituencies the Democrat party is already facing what will probably be a new matrix.
It is not the future functions of a “new” party that will require organization, leading to oligarchic structure, that will provide the answer to past failures of functions. It is the failures of the legislative and executive offices in the uses of the powers delegated to them – as a recognized now by the general populace – that have to be remedied if political parties are to continue to function.
This sounds like the fallacy of grey – “you mock the simplicity of a two-color view, while putting forth a one-color view”. I don’t believe there was ever anyone pure on Earth but Jesus; I do believe that the original Angloid founding stock of America inclined more libertarian than various other groups.
In what universe do you either think Catholics are a race, or think it is honest to ascribe such a view to me?
I don’t know if there is a name for the type of fallacy that Johnathan Pearce has expressed above, but it amounts to believing that false cries of “Wolf!” somehow prove that wolves don’t exist. The history of Irish, Italian, etc. migration is quite different than the history of Muslim migration. Also, the Irish, Italians, etc. do not subscribe to a religion that believes its destiny is to establish a worldwide theocratic dictatorship, by force if necessary.
That’s a fair description of the Kennedys.
America needs a new party, one that will — in the present emergency — bravely sit down and decline to take any action whatsoever except dismantling 90% of the state apparatus. Slowly, while drinking adult beverages and avoiding work.
Let’s hear it for King Log!
@ Lee Moore: So, some crooked little bastard who somehow manages to extort enough ill-gotten gains to buy a house gets the vote, on the basis that his crack-whore mother couldn’t keep her legs together.
Meanwhile a naturalized US citizen who starts a business, creates wealth and jobs and works hard to oppose the excesses of the local corrupt politicians and bureaucrats doesn’t, just because he was born in England?
I didn’t have you pegged as a tosser, but (iii) is very tosserish. A common sentiment in these parts, which I’ve heard voiced by a range of folks from Joe Public to United States Marines, is that naturalized citizens often have a better understanding of and a greater commitment to, the US Constitution than many natural born citizens. Yet you’d throw that away over birthplace?
I’m with you on (ii), though.
I agree, the other rob, that there are lots of splendid immigrants. The problem is that the lefties have taken Brecht’s advice to heart and have decided to replace the people with a new people, by importing new people.
If naturalised citizens, however wonderful, didn’t get to vote, this temptation would disappear, and migration could proceed without government encouragement. The naturalised citizens could happily look forward to their native children voting. The “people’ would change but much more slowly with correspondingly greater scope for assimilation.
I am willing to settle however for a diluted version of the rule. You get to vote after 18 years of citizenship, however you acquired your citizenship.
“Often” and “many” sound a little weasely in that sentence. I expect that naturalized citizens, as a group, have a wider distribution of understanding of and commitment to the US Constitution, with more at both ends of the spectrum, relatively speaking.
I think America already has two parties which favour most of that. The current incumbent does not, which is why America voted for him.
It is a massive irony that someone wants unfettered immigration to ‘abolish’ tribalism (or ‘national identity’, as most people would call it). Look at the United States today versus thirty years ago – do you see less ‘tribalism’ or more?
Or look at Paris, Brussels and soon Germany – less or more?
All you are doing is importing MORE tribes, and hostile ones at that.
Alisa (March 6, 2017 at 1:50 pm): “the real question is, are the local’s in bobby’s neck of the woods actually correct about this – despite the real possibility that those past locals in NY may had been incorrect.”
This is indeed the point that the OP seems to ignore – that the accuracy of native suspicions against immigrants is an empirical question. Arguing that accusations against a given group are necessarily unjust because similar accusations against another group were once unjust is as absurd as saying X must be innocent of murder because Y was once wrongly charged with murder. It only tells us not to treat the mere existence of such accusation as proof in itself.
There have been unjust accusations. There is a long history of Jewish migrants and refugees being suspected of treason to their host communities. This accusation was almost never true. Dreyfus was innocent, and that the idea of Jewish treason his case was meant to exemplify was very statistically false is easily seen in both sides of WWI, so that this innocence is what exemplifies almost every such case. It can be argued that the Jewish communities in Spain sided with the muslim invaders against the visigothic rulers circa 700 AD (or it can be seen as quick post-facto acceptance of a fait accompl; I observe the visigothic kings were clearly having a hard time keeping the loyalty of their Catholic subjects as well). By contrast, those visigoths, ostrogoths and vandals that the late Roman empire allowed in as federates did not turn out so well for it.
None of that means that accusations against a specific group must be statistically false. And ‘statistical’ here does not mean an actual majority perpetrating specific acts. My poem’s point is that an evil outcome does not need a majority of immigrants to participate in evil acts.
I repeat…..
Under a “First Past the Post” electoral system a New Party makes no sense.
And if you can not even win a Republican Primary with free market ideas you have NO CHANCE of winning the general election with them.
Why? 😛
Niall, thanks for articulating what I had in mind much better than I ever could have.
Just in case anyone had forgotten Alisa.
Besides I am a hobbit (big furry feet and all) – I like repeating the obvious.
I think I see an underlying issue that is being missed in this discussion – we may be talking about immigration as different things.
My last comment, and I believe Johnathan’s and the quote of the day, all seem to be regarding immigration as a matter for individuals, whilst those with concerns about immigration seem to see immigration as a group thing. I think we would all be concerned by the concept of groups immigrating into a relatively free society wholescale, as sometimes seems to be the ideal of those promoting multiculturalism. My question would be whether individuals who wish to immigrate are a problem, assuming they are not simply coming to their destination (I originally wrote here, then realised that to actually meet most of the people I am arguing with I would have to go through immigration…) to join others of their group.
So I assume everyone is happy with the idea that importing groups of people to a society wholescale is a problem (not exactly a new one – it caused the scares Erik pointed out in the past). But do people have the same objection to someone who might be Muslim but is wanting to say go to the US to pursue a career in gene-therapy, and whose actual religious inclinations are the equivalent of the guy who goes to church every couple of Christmas (and yes, I know Muslims like that – the UK manages to produce an Islamic version of Anglicans quite well). And who as a result would prefer to settle in an area with good coffee shops, music and potential friends, the religion of whom does not matter?
I think the problem with immigration is that it can be a mass movement, which is not ideal and does need to be opposed (hence the need for the nation state in this respect). But personally I view extending that to individuals is the opposite of freedom – a state might have a common culture (although the US’s ancestral English culture was not liberal or libertarian in any way – half of it was slave-owning for God’s sake… And some of them were puritans who were concerned about their neighbour’s behaviours, which is hardly the definition of liberal or libertarian I’d expect) but wierdly this either evolves or the state dies (see Bhutan for a practical realisation of this), and so long as people are happy to sign up to the culture shouldn’t they be welcomed if they want to come and can do something useful?
Incidentally, why are leftists being blamed on immigrants? Whilst they go after the immigrant vote a lot, I can’t recall any notable British leftists of an immigrant background more recently than the Millibands (father was a Jewish refugee – family seems entirely British though, if a little odd (and if watching Richard Curtis films has taught me anything it is that leftists think the normal British family is very odd…)). You might want to mention Diane Abbott, but I seriously wouldn’t recommend it – I did use the word notable in the sense has played a role in taking the movement forward.
Obviously the same does not apply in the States, but even there I get the feeling that as much of the leftist thought is home-grown as any other philosophy (for all his father’s nationality, Obama is pure American remember, even if it is not the America any of us would want to see).
Blaming socialism on immigrants is easy but stupid – it is a fallacy that can arise anywhere, and tends nowadays to to be found amongst the comfortably well off, who in most English-speaking countries are not immigrants.
Watchman, we are discussing public policy here – which of its very nature is collective, if not collectivist. Sort of (big ‘sort-of’, but still) like when we fought the Nazis: we now know, and probably always knew that there were some very good people who happened to fight for Germany at the time, and they were nominally Nazis. But since war is necessarily a collectivist affair, our ability to tell the good Nazis from the bad ones was extremely limited.
Blaming socialism on immigrants is easy but stupid – it is a fallacy that can arise anywhere, and tends nowadays to to be found amongst the comfortably well off, who in most English-speaking countries are not immigrants.
Correct. It is also worth pointing out that certain immigrant groups have been, from what I read, to be more, not less, pro-enterprise/liberty than the locals. Most of my friends from Central/Eastern Europe are this way inclined, ditto for those from Asia. And consider the businessmen from parts of the Indian sub-continent, or Cuban refugees who became successful in the US, or Vietnamese, Koreans, etc.
The “immigrants are bringing lefty ideas with them” is a massive generalisation. For every example of a Frankfurt School Marxist professor teaching at Harvard, I could give you a European emigre who was on the other side politically (Ayn Rand, Mises, John Von Neumann).
Alisa,
Why is public policy collectivist? Surely to concede that is to concede that collectivism is correct? We should be arguing that public policy is a matter of law and the individual, not collective groups.
The US had, as far as I know, always had a wise immigration policy: it accepted immigrants on an individual basis – it accepted those individuals that could contribute to the US. Either professional people of high ability and qualifications (scientists, doctors, engineers, etc.) or businessmen – i.e. people who brought money with them.
(That started, of course, when totally free immigration was stopped in the 1920ies).
Seems these good practices were abandoned recently – in the past 20 years the US accepted about 1 million legal immigrants per year… These practices were, of course, discriminatory- but so what? The US has no obligation to accept anyone. At least they were not racist or religious – the discrimination was based on merit.
Illegal immigration is an entirely different problem. I don’t think that somebody, libertarian or not, supports that – i.e. free and unlimited immigration (like it was before 1920).
For a political theorist, Zubrin makes a pretty good rocket engineer.
Actually, all America needs is no Democrats and no RINOs. It could get along pretty well with the rump of the Republican party.
And meanwhile, in the real world, it has occured to me that President Trump might achieve more than Ted Cruz might have done, given the utter disdain most of the people and the Congress seem to have for his world view.
I was a Cruz suporter, but Cruz is a Republican, and would be (is?) unwilling to destroy the Republican party in order to save it. I did not support Trump, but it has become clear that Trump is the President that America needs and deserves. Whatever Trump does to destroy the old political orders, it needs to be done sooner rather than later.
I hope that TrumpCare will:
1. Repeal the mandates.
2. Open up the healthcare markets nationwide; eliminate the 50 separate state insurance markets.
3. Make ALL health insurance premiums tax deductable.
4. Allow and encourage national fraternal organizations to offer health insurance plans. The Elks, the Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Military Officers Associations, and the Grange should offer health care coverage that IS NOT TIED TO YOUR EMPLOYMENT. The goal is to break the link between employers and health insurance; make it possible to buy health coverage that is truly portable, from job to job and state to state.
Watchman @ March 7, 2017 at 2:08 pm:
How about all these Labour figures?
Chuka Umunna MP (Nigerian immigrant father)
Rushanara Ali MP (Bangladeshi)
Rupa Huq MP (Bangladeshi parents)
Shabana Mahmood MP (Pakistani parents)
Khalid Mahmood MP (Pakistani)
Chi Onwurah (Nigerian immigrant father)
Yasmin Qureshi MP (Pakistani)
Naz Shah MP (Pakistani parents, raised in Pakistan)
Tulip Siddiq MP (Bangladeshi parents)
Keith Vaz MP (Goanese; born in Aden)
Valerie Vaz MP (Goanese; born in Aden)
Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London (Pakistani parents)
There are a few Conservative immigrant-background pols as well (Adam Afriye, Priti Patel, Rehman Chishti, others).
But constituencies with largely immigrant populations overwhelmingly vote Labour.
Jacob @ March 7, 2017 at 8:13 pm:
You haven’t read the comments here by Perry Metzger.
Nor have you noticed the open-borders advocacy of the far left: “Smash racist borders once and for all!”, headlines the Progressive Labor Party (U.S.); “[a] slogan of the traditional Left… [and] urgent call to action: ‘Smash All Borders!'” writes Marxist critic Marcial Gonzalez.
The plan all along. And when things were looking ropey with China over the handover of Hong Kong, that (comparatively) free-market, unpoliticised pearl of the Orient, the Left were strangely muted about the Hong Kong Chinese coming over to the UK, since 1. the Left were presumably happy for them to be slaughtered, and 2. were worried that they might not vote Labour.
Yet as the time neared, it was suggested that if the Hong Kong Chinese were moved to Northern Ireland, it might have solved the Troubles….
Jacob, just to add to Rich’s point — there are a lot of soi-disant libertarians — and accepted as such by other libertarians — here who advocate completely open borders (where they accept the idea of borders at all). Some of them do think we should wait until the Welfare system is dismantled (Lazarus Long will have been Long Dead by then, say I, pessimistically), but others want them opened NOW! as a matter of iron principle which must not be abandoned in the face of reality.
Alisa : we are discussing public policy here – which of its very nature is collective, if not collectivist
Watchman Why is public policy collectivist? Surely to concede that is to concede that collectivism is correct? We should be arguing that public policy is a matter of law and the individual, not collective groups
Except in an absolute monarchy*, the making of the law is collective. It is not a matter left to individuals, nor could it be. It’s public policy. If the law is classically liberal, it’s because the voting public collectively makes it so.
I think Watchman is confusing the content of public policy with its production methods.
* and even in an absolute monarchy, the monarch has to take account of baronial interests, the propensity of the townsfolk to riot, the sullenness of the peasantry etc.
Rich’s list of Labour MPs is missing Shami Chakrabarti (Bengali parents) and Gisela Stuart (German.)
Shami, though ghastly in every way, is unarguably British, born here, has always lived here, and has been trying to destroy traditional British institutions for her whole adult life, like the most native of native Trots. And there’s no reason at all why such natives of foreign extraction shouldn’t participate fully in political life. Nor, IMHO, is there any reason why actual immigrants like Gisela shouldn’t be elected to Parliament. (She is as Labour MPs go, fairly sensible.)
My objection is to immigrants voting. Shami should be allowed to vote, not Gisela.
Lee Moore
The person you refer to as one who should be allowed to vote has actually denied herself a vote for the House of Commons by taking a seat in the House of Lords, forsaking any say in taxation for £300 a day tax-free attendance allowances and a vote on non-Money Bills, as defined by the Speaker.
I beg her Ladyship’s pardon. I thought she was a mere MP not a Lord.
Watchman, I specifically wrote ‘collective, if not collectivist’ – meaning that public policy is always collective by definition (being public, as Lee explained), but is always in danger sliding into collectivism, as all collective actions always are.
If you want individual policy, though, there was an interesting idea floated around the Sailery regions of the blogosphere: Immigration insurance. As I understood it, it went something like this:
To enter America, a would-be immigrant would need to be sponsored by a patron. To qualify as a patron, one needs to have a certain amount of wealth on hand, because the patron will be liable for damages payable in crimes committed by his clients and also for costs imposed on the public fisc by the client. Since both crimes and ER visits are relatively unpredictable, unevenly distributed events, the natural solution is for patrons to get insurance on the matter: patron pays X dollars a month to insurance company, insurance company pays out X million dollars to the bereaved if the immigrant turns out to be a terrorist and blows shit up. (The patron may, of course, charge clients for sponsorship.)
Insurance companies and market forces being what they are, such a system can reasonably be expected to favor the better class of immigrant, while still allowing preening far-leftists to preen by sponsoring in Libyan migrants, but now at their own expense.
Let’s have a vote. Those who are for totally free immigration (to the US or UK or any country) please speak up. Totally free means: no visa, no permits, no citizenship – all comers are welcome.
By the way: most countries are officially hermetically closed, that is – there is no way to get in there legally. Prominent among them are: Japan, China, Mexico, etc. (Though – a bribe usually opens all doors).
RRS it is not so much the Iron Law of Oligarchy as lack of a market.
If people wanted a smaller government they could have voted for Gary Johnson – how many did less than 1%?
“But Gary Johnson is a silly pothead” – O.K. what about Ted Cruz he could not even win most of the Republican Primaries.
I keep making the same point because people refuse to understand.
Devote your minds to persuading people in such things as the New Hampshire and South Carolina Republican Primaries.
If you can not even do that – then stop talking nonsense about a “New Party”.
Paul Marks
Does
lack of a market” mean much the same thing as having no current function?
RRS – I do not think so.
I think the current function of pro freedom people is to convince Republican voters in Primaries of the value of rolling back government.
People still have a horrible faith in government – even in conservative South Dakota Sales Tax was increased last year (for the first time in 40 years) to increase government teacher pay.
What will that achieve? Of course it will achieve NOTHING. The increased government spending will not produce better educational results. But the fact that (after all the decades of evidence to the contrary) even Republicans think “more taxpayer money spent = better results” shows we have explained nothing to people.
Of course it may be impossible to convince people of the truth – but we should still try.
The alternative is “Galt’s Gulch” if the technology to hide an area of land from the savage state (national and international) exists.