Some propositions:
1. Freedom is a good thing. It is good in itself and it leads to good outcomes.
2. Freedom includes “free movement”.
3. Free movement is a bad thing. It leads to bad outcomes.
I can imagine some of the responses to this.
Freedom of movement is a success.
Really?
Anti-Jewish sit-in at Liverpool Street Station.
Still think it’s a success? I’d love to know what you would regard as failure.
Freedom of movement worked in the US in the 19th Century.
Yes, but not anywhere else. And certainly not here, and not now.
I know some great immigrants (and their descendants).
And so do I.
I’d go to war with her.
…and her.
The issue is not with those who come in small numbers. Or the ones who marry in. It’s with the ones who arrive en masse, live separately and learn to despise the natives.
There are problems but these would be solved with more freedom. If we abolished discrimination laws, hate speech laws etc things would be better. If we abolished planning (US=zoning) laws, the NHS and state education a lot of the pressures that immigration causes would be eased.
I am not sure that abolishing hate laws etc is even possible. People who find themselves mocked for their immutable characteristics are going to try to do something about it. Abolishing planning etc would be a good thing but that would do nothing to reduce the problems caused by mass migration. By making migration even more attractive it might even make them worse.
If you ditch freedom of movement where do you stop? freedom of speech, property rights?
That is the bit that troubles me the most. I want to believe that libertarianism has universal application. But what if it doesn’t? Here is an idea. Matters concerning the tribe are off-limits. Who is a member of the tribe? Where shall the tribe live? How shall the tribe defend itself? are simply outside the realm of libertarianism.
Update 5/11/23. When commenters started to mention the welfare state I had something of an “Oh drat!” moment. I’d simply forgotten to mention it. And it is a plausible explanation for both mass migration and its failure.
So, how do we assess the claim? We need to find examples of unsuccessful mass migration in the absence of a welfare state (or similar). This is not an easy thing to do. Welfare states and transport becoming affordable to even the world’s poorest came about at about the same time. There are a couple of counter-examples. Irish immigration to Belfast in the 19th Century for example. There were no Irishmen in Belfast before about 1800. There was no welfare state. There was lots of immigration to the shipyards and other industries. And by 1858 (if memory serves) there was lots of trouble. Another example which I can’t find was in a comment left here maybe 15 years ago. The commenter pointed out that Singapore had no welfare state, lots of immigration and ethnic tensions.
It comes down to the contributions that immigrants make to this country and their ability to integrate with British society and customs.
Some of the best examples of this arose almost by accident, such as the immigration of the Huguenots or more recently the Ugandan Asians. In short, they reciprocated British generosity in providing them refuge with hard work and ingenuity, bringing themselves and the country prosperity.
Where it doesn’t work is where you have an antagonistic mentality which refuses to contribute and simply wants to exploit British tolerance and generosity for their own ends.
Examples we’ve seen in recent times have been the Roma (Thanks EU!) and Middle Eastern and North African migrants who have done nothing more than create modern ghettos in our major cities, treat our laws with contempt and created innumerable problems for marginal to negative returns.
I don’t blame freedom of movement for this problems as much as the welfare and social housing system for being exploited by those who have never contributed to it.
If this was rebalanced to ensure that only those who had contributed for a reasonable period could withdraw from the system then lots of those who come here would go elsewhere.
We’re a soft touch, made so by Marxists in our Central and Local governments who wish to undermine British culture and our way of life.
There are limits to libertarianism: taxes have to be collected to pay for protection against invasions, asteroid impacts, etc.
But it seems to me that preventing foreigners from entering, is not a limit to libertarianism, if we assume that there is some sort of collective ownership of national land, or at least of public spaces, by the citizenry.
And please note that there is de facto collective ownership of all national land: otherwise, governments could not collect taxes on real estate.
All those who believe in freedom of movement: remove the doors from your house.
What would the problem look like in a world of free movement, but without a welfare state?
I suspect it’s the welfare state that’s the problem, not free movement.
Not just that, but the ability to withdraw without having contributed. When it was an “Insurance Scheme” (early days) it wasn’t so much of a problem, because if you hadn’t paid in there was nothing to be paid out.
Same with social housing, it used to be that you put your name on a list and after a year or two got access to a council flat or house that met your need, but this was considered racist, since it blocked invaders from accessing council housing.
FWIW, I am a British citizen having been born there and working there for a while, running a business there for a while (so paying into the system.) I have lived most of my working life in the US though. However, if I decided to come back and live there I would have very limited access to public services. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have free access to the NHS for example — for sure I don’t if I visit. I’m not planning to do that (god help me, with your censorship regime I’d be in jail within the week), so I haven’t actually investigated, but the prospect seems rather bleak. Perhaps if I come there on a boat and shred my British passport first?
I bet though I can probably still get a pension from national insurance, like three quid a week, when I retire. If only I could remember my NI number 😀
The immigrants themselves are usually not much of a problem… at least, not for middle-class people like me.
The real problem is that, nowadays, a multi-cultural society inevitably loses freedom of speech: With the pretext of protecting minorities, the establishment finds a way of covering their arses.
One implication is that, once criticism of a minority is banned, a criminal element soon develops within that minority.
Another implication is that the establishment can respond to any criticism on any issue by branding the critics as racists.
Absolutely. The welfare state is the root of the problem.
It’s the question Camp of the Saints asked at the beginning: what happens when the number of immigrants unlike the locals hits such a number that it can no longer be controlled or contained and expected to assimilate? Europe is past the tipping point with immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. The US is past the tipping point with immigrants from south of the border and Asia. Canada is past the tipping point with immigrants from Asia. It was by design from our betters and by the time it was noticeable, it was too late and we have been whipped into silence with the threats of being called racists.
I’m glad I never had children because there is no way I would want to bring children into the world kids today will be facing in 30 years or so.
Pure libertarianism is like pure communism. Neither works unless your society is completely made up of supermen. Pure communism requires selfless supermen, pure libertarianism requires selfish supermen.
The “we just want people to move freely” crowd were exposed long ago.
Quite some years ago the taxpayers of California (the people who are having to MOVE OUT now – who are being FORCED OUT now) voted to restrict government benefits and public services in relation to illegal immigrants – if this was really about “freedom” the supporters of “free movement” would have been delighted.
In reality all-Hell-broke-lose – the taxpayers of California were denounced as “racists” and the far left courts invalidated the vote.
That exposed this whole “freedom of movement” thing as nothing to do with freedom – it is a SCAM, it is about government benefits and public services.
The United States had a basically open border with Latin America for more than a century – but there was no great influx over the southern border. Britain, the United Kingdom, had open borders till the 20th century – again there was no great influx. Then government benefits and public services came along – and “Hey Presto” there was a massive influx.
This is nothing to with freedom – it is to do with free loading, it is about government benefits and public services. It is a scam.
@Perry de Havilland (Wiltshire)
Absolutely. The welfare state is the root of the problem.
It is one of the dilemmas of the welfare state. The argument in favor of a welfare state is “do you want to see grannies and kids starving to death or dying of preventable disease?” But the problem is that there are grannies and kids starving and dying of preventable diseases all over the world. Somehow the fact they are doing it near us somehow makes it more urgent. In a sense it is quite dishonest. Are we to provide welfare for all of the world, or only the ones with the resources and gumption to trek thousands of miles and sail here on a wooden door with a couple of barrels attached?
But there is another question that comes with this, and it is one that libertarian philosophy tends to gloss over (and PdH I don’t think ignores it since he says “root of the problem” not the whole of the problem), which is to say cultural integrity. Does a culture have a right to preserve itself? Is the goal of preserving “Britishness” sufficient moral justification for excluding people who are distinctly unBritish? Of course these other cultures are perfectly good in themselves, unBritish is in no way meant pejoratively. But can we justify excluding people, or at least limiting their numbers, for the purpose of defending our culture?
Is it, for example, OK for Americans to be asked on every phone call if they’d like the Spanish version? I say this as a massive lover of the Latin culture and Latin language, and someone who thinks the Latin culture has greatly enhanced American culture itself.
And directly related to this is the idea of cultural values. Is it ok to say that core ideas that are part of that culture, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, toleration of other religions, the integrity of the family, is it ok to say that there is a moral imperative to preserve these, even if it means excluding foreign immigrants, or reducing their numbers anyway. Both to reduce the general cultural dilution of these values and to have people who don’t share these values participate in the political system?
Of course all cultures can be greatly enhanced by a foreign infusion. English is a better language because of those bloody French invaders. But there is a point where it is overrun rather than enhanced.
These aren’t questions that libertarian philosophy does well with. It sort of assumes that all people are lovers of freedom, all people have the same core western values that the priests of libertarianism do. And they really are moral questions — ones without an objective answer, ones we have to decide as a society ourselves, what we want to be. Preferably without being goaded with accusations of racism and threats of cancelation.
End all benefits and all public services for migrants, and bring back the vagrancy laws (under attack by leftist judges since the 1960s) so that migrants are not allowed to sleep on the streets – and, I strongly suspect, the mass influx over the southern border of the United States, and the mass influx into Europe – would end.
But what if it does not? Well then we get to a difficult matter for libertarians – the sort of people one lets into the city gates.
According to modern doctrine all people are the same – they have the same beliefs and behave in similar ways, any differences are superficial – a matter of different rituals, “all religions teach the same basic things” and “all cultures are equal”- these things are obviously NOT true, but it is dangerous, given the laws of the United Kingdom, to discuss these matters honestly. The establishment has a system of laws which means that the honest discussion of many matters risks PUNISHMENT (so much for this being about “freedom” – the only way they can keep their system going, for what time it has left, is to destroy Freedom of Speech).
But it is clear that allowing enemies in “the city gates” is unwise, indeed suicidal. It is not following the “non aggression principle” to allow your enemies to come and destroy you and your family. Well defended borders are often necessary.
Ask yourself the following questions.
Do you want Australia to be part of Indonesia? Indonesia has ten times the population and is just across the sea.
Do you want European nations to come to end – to become an extension of Africa or the Middle East?
You do not need to answer – indeed to answer honestly risks PUNISHMENT.
Just think about it – and think about whether a system that depends on legal PUNISHMENT for expressing the “wrong” opinions (because they are “racist” or “Islamophobic or whatever) is really about freedom.
I suspect it’s the welfare state that’s the problem, not free movement.
There’s a lot in that. In the past, the Hugenots, the Polish Jews, the Ugandans came to Britain where they could work hard and become successful. Today, people *KNOW* they can come to Britain and be given free accommodation, free food, free phones, Free Willy! We even scream it in the media: come here, free stuff!
This. An example from a particular historical context a country (when technology was less advanced, global communications much more limited, and travel often much more dangerous) from with a rather exceptional (ie unique) past is held up as a universalist example for contemporary conditions. What could possibly go wrong?
As for the welfare state, I’m sure it does contribute to the problems. It is a bit of a vicious cycle as in countries like the UK mass immigration is also used to paper up the economic cracks – we have several million working age people who are economically inactive and productivity growth has barely occurred over the past few decades. Foreign labour is used to help keep up the pretence Britain still has a healthy economy.
Still,I think there’s a lot more to the problem than welfare. I could be getting some facts twisted but my impression is that Britain’s Albanian/Kosovan immigrants are actually quite enterprising and industrious folk rather than welfare bums. Its just that quite a high proprotion of them reaching British shores happen to be rather enterprising at sex trafficking, drug smuggling, armed robbery, and such other lovely things. Likewise, I’m not sure so many Islamic immigrants to Britain have unsavoury views about Jews, infidels, etc simply because of welfare, and I think a large Islamic population would cause tensions in the country regardless of the economic policies of the country.
This is why I dropped libertarianism in favour of conservatism. The former is too universalist for my liking. I’m happy for Britain to be a country of liberty. I’m quite relaxed to a degree if Saudi Arabia wants to be Saudi Arabia, providing Saudi Arabia stays in Saudi Arabia 😉
I am all in favor of privatizing welfare and “social security” — and please note, in Viking Iceland the welfare system was largely independent of the justice system.
However, if you take in refugees, you cannot deny them taxpayer-funded welfare, at least for a while.
It’s the welfare state, mostly, which makes open borders to poor folk unwilling to assimilate so attractive, while also making the tax system far worse.
Vast majorities of voters prefer welfare for citizens and only limited immigration.
@Snorri Godhi
If you believe people should be forced to pay taxes you are, by definition, not a libertarian.
“Freedom of movement worked in the US in the 19th Century.
Yes, but not anywhere else. And certainly not here, and not now.”
An example from a particular historical context a country … held up as a universalist example for contemporary conditions.
The American 19th century immigrants were brought in to settle the uninhabited frontier, not to walk from the docks into a tax-payer-funded hotel. Immigrants into the UK are perfectly welcome to step off their aeroplane straight onto a train to the wilderness of nowhere and start a farm.
There’s nothing anti-libertarian about combining together to build roads and hire cops, is there? I thought that was an acceptable scope of government.
I’m no expert on this era of US history, but the Tammany Hall political machine in New York did often provide some forms of welfare services to incoming immigrants. Of course I doubt the handouts were anything equivalent to today.
Generally though I would say that nineteenth century US immigration policy doesn’t offer any useful model for contemporary Britain (it doesn’t even offer a good model for contemporary America because the country has changed so much). Britain doesn’t have large uninhabited frontiers, is already densely populated, has a moribund and low productivity economy, has unpatriotic political and business elites, and our immigrants come from almost everywhere rather than being overwhelmingly European.
SteveD:
I DID write that there are limits to libertarianism!
Bobby:
Combining voluntarily is fine and libertarian, and perhaps it is sufficient for most roads and most security from petty crime; but when it comes to defense against invasion or asteroid impact, then i fear that there is no alternative to forcing people to pay taxes.
Viking Iceland was a special case, because would-be invaders had to sail across half of the North Atlantic in sailboats to invade.
Repeat after me:
1. Ideology is bad. You allow yourself to be locked into a fixed set of ideas, you’re making a huge mistake. This is because of Item #2:
2. Not everything works in every case. One size does not fit all; some use cases can be found for things like socialism and even hard-core communism. The trouble comes when you try to apply them everywhere at every time.
3. Because something worked once, does not imply that it will work again, even in very similar circumstances. Every situation is different; every problem is different. Similar solutions may obtain, but there is always the chance, nay, the likelihood, that what worked wonderfully well the last time around will produce disaster this time around…
4. Problems may seem the same, yet they will always be different, if only because of what we might term the “quantum observer effect”, in that if you see another Adolf Hitler rising up, the fact that you observe him, compare him, and then respond to him as you theorize people should have responded to Hitler… You may not obtain similar effects to the solution that did work. The fact that you and the “new Hitler” have experience of Hitler and his “solution” will impact what you do today and tomorrow about said individual.
5. Yesterday’s saint can very well become today’s villain and tomorrow’s embarrassment. Pick wisely, those you chose to deify; they likely have feet of clay, just like everyone else.
6. Also, ya see the crowd? The way it moves? Remember that said crowd once thought dear old Adolf was the bee’s knees, and that he was the solution to everything from waxy buildup to the progress of world Communism. Sometimes, the imagined “cure” is worse than the disease itself. Although, I don’t doubt but that if Stalin had been left alone, that he might not have decided to make a stab for Europe on his own, and how that might have wound up…? No damned idea at all. Could have even managed to be far worse than what we got with Hitler and WWII… I mean, Stalin did manage to kill rather more Soviet citizens than his enemies, in the final analysis.
The welfare state is not the root of the problem.
It is part of it but the real root is the assault on freedom of speech. I don’t just mean getting scrobbled by the rozzers but it has gone beyond that. It has become cultural. There are things you just can’t say anymore almost anywhere. Because they have simply been made socially unacceptable. I fear Paul Marks is right. The Frankenfurters have done such a good job that in many ways “hate speech” polices itself.
If that were to change then much would follow from it.
For example:
It is not just the fear of jail for “insulting Islam” (even if you are actually just quoting the Qu’ran) or being lynched by a Muslim mob but of being seen as beyond the pale by one’s peers. Not getting that job, people avoiding you in the street or having your bank account closed down. It is a nasty society. It is an unreal society. For every one of those idiots at Liverpool Street Station how many Brits do you think are quietly thinking, “Gaza had it coming to them” but dare not say? A lot. But quite a few don’t question the narrative themselves because they have so internalised it that an act of such profound barbarity as the 7/10 raid on Israel is almost forgotten in under a month and the story is now about the evil Zionists again. Note the BBC et. al. is moaning about UK citizens not being able to get out of Gaza. They have forgotten the UK citizens raped, tortured, killed or still held hostage by Hamas.
The immigration system is also so fucked to the core in so many ways that it might as well have been a 13 year old girl in Rochdale.
The latter point I could write an essay on but it is late.
I’m tired. But I have two things I need to say before I shut the lid… These are two things I confidently expect to happen soon…
1. Folks will claim 7/10 was a “False Flag” and the IDF did it or faked it to justify invading Gaza. Probably with the usual suspects conspiring.
2. A bunch of popular “entertainers” will organise some sort of “Band Aid” gig for Gaza.
@Snorri Godhi
Combining voluntarily is fine and libertarian, and perhaps it is sufficient for most roads and most security from petty crime; but when it comes to defense against invasion or asteroid impact, then i fear that there is no alternative to forcing people to pay taxes.
I am not at all sure why you are focused on asteroids. The only funding the US has for asteroid prevention is scientists ginning up scare stories to congress to give them money for their telescopes and space exploration so that they can do completely unrelated work of their own design. Throw in a bit of “asteroid safety” to get them to sign the check. TBH, I think our best hope of asteroid defense is Elon Musk teaming up with Bruce Willis and Ben Aflleck.
But the US military is MASSIVELY more expensive than is needed to defend against an invasion. If that is what our military did it would cost maybe 2% of what it does currently. Last time the US was invades was what? The Alamo? The only part of the military actually authorized in the US Constitution is the Navy, in fact the founding fathers were quite scared of the idea of a standing army. I’m no expert on law, but my understanding is that we don’t actually have a standing army, just a temporary one that congress renews every year. The US could defend its borders with a much smaller Navy, and each state having a national guard that could coordinate together to defend the nation in time of trouble. From my understanding that is the constitutional design of the US military. For sure we couldn’t stick our noses in everyone else’s business, and bomb the hell out of foreign innocents, but that is kind of the point. It is noteworthy that one of the few actual threats to the US mainland are long range ballistic missiles (because like Iceland we also have large oceans on either side.) However, despite the trillions of dollars poured into the US military, what is the one thing we have never taken seriously? Yup, you guessed it, anti ballistic missile defense — defense against the only ACTUAL threat to the US.
As to roads, police, firefighters etc., these are things provided at a local level. What difference does that make? All the difference in the world. It is the essence of federalism, where if you don’t like the way the roads or police are in one town you can either change it in small local elections where you have some hope of having influence, or you can move to a different city, finding one with rules you like better. Federalism is like a free market in government. DC is like a massive monopoly where you are robbed of your choices.
Libertarianism is not a binary state, either libertarian or not. It is a spectrum from anarcho capitalism, to various levels of minarchy, to federalism, to big government. Everyone here exists somewhere on that spectrum.
Open borders in one country?
To be fair it should be made clear that Muslims were not the people who corrupted the society and institutions of Western countries such as the United Kingdom – the institutions and society were corrupted before they got here, which is why they and their children and children’s-children have not assimilated – other than in a superficial way (pop music and sport is NOT a culture).
There is nothing much left, in terms of core principles, for immigrants to assimilate into. They did not undermine the core Western principles – because these core principles were already undermined before they got here.
@Fraser
You’d be wrong on that one.
Some good reporting in todays telegraph about hard-line Islamist’s advising the Met in their policing of demonstrations, advising the CPS and most egregiously the Muslim Council of Britain liaising with the MOD about appointing military imams in direct contravention of explicitly stated government instructions.
Over here we look in horror at the complete politicisation of the US judiciary and departments of state (was anything ever done about Lois Lerner’s IRS? No, I didn’t think so).
We should be looking closer to home
Re the policing of demonstrations, you hear but you do not listen. According to the government, what is the greatest threat? White supremacists. Who is a white supremacist? The mother on Facebook complaining about her daughter being harassed by Muslim youths, the gammon with a union jack. The police have repurposed themselves to deal with this threat. Ask them to deal with a large number of angry young men, they’ve got nothing. The days when they could field a thousand coppers with riot shields, batons and teargas are gone.
The obvious way to deal with these protests is to stop the protesters as early a possible, impound the coaches, intercept them at train stations. Of course, to do that they would require the government to declare the protest illegal, which they pointedly have not done.
Fraser Orr said:
Yeah. Well, that’s a point of view. A naive and simple one, but a point of view nonetheless.
Here’s the ‘effing problem: The US, at the behest of the genius types we had running the place back around 1900-1950, chose to undertake the support and operation of “the international system” that the UK had been doing for all those years after Napoleon. WWI and WWII were run the way they were because the US “genius” types thought they could do better than the UK with its “nasty little colonial empire”. They thought they could do the job better, and be more “morally pure” while they were at it. And, make some money…
We can all see how well that little fantasy worked out.
We mounted the tiger, and threw the UK off the top of the heap. Brilliant idea, that… So, we’re stuck where we are, unable to manage a dismount, because if we do that, then the forces of chaos are likely gonna take over. As our power ebbs, you can see the outlines of what is coming there in the South China Sea. Extrapolate that out, and imagine a world where regional powers like China are bullying and taking over their neighbors, and then ask yourself why the hell we ever wanted the thankless and very expensive job in the first damn place?
I would surmise that it was mostly for the grifting and the graft our leadership could skim off the top, which they’ve become more and more shameless about as time progresses.
Nonetheless, you can’t just say “I didn’t sign up for this, and I want out…”, because the side-effects are going to be rather unpleasant for rather an awful lot of people. Especially the important ones who sit on the boards and in the NGO suites around the world…
The other thing that Fraser discounts here is the military expense… The biggest problem with cutting back on the military budget is precisely what got us into WWII the way it went down. Nobody thought that the US could put together a credible military force in the time we did it, and it should not have worked as well as it did. Indeed, you can lay a lot of the problems we had at the door of “military unpreparedness”, which translates out into “lost lives”. Had the US maintained a credible Army and Navy together during the post-WWI era, odds are fairly good that the way WWII played out would not have happened. Something else would have, but it wouldn’t have been the shiite-show it was at the beginning in ohsomanyways.
Military expertise is a fragile thing; you can lose your ability to run an effective war very, very quickly. You could see the outlines of that during the 1990s. Each and every one of the guys I served with at the National Training Center during the late 1990s was dead certain that 3 ID was going to have its ass handed to it in Iraq. Given what we saw from its brigades during their training rotations at Fort Irwin, you couldn’t have projected anything else; they were that bad. The guys that went over to Kuwait for the mobile training teams while 3 ID was in the desert waiting for the balloon to go up saw the same thing; apathy, sloth, and utter disinterest. That’s what you get when you have a professional army spend a decade of “not training” and doing nothing but the Clinton-era “Consideration Of Others” sort of crap instead of crew drills every week.
I still don’t know how the hell or why they pulled it out. There were problems during the invasion, but you saw a far different force during the opening stages of OIF than you did at the NTC. Something focused their minds, wonderfully. I was doing an augment rotation down at the NTC right after 9/11 happened, and it was an interesting perspective. Where the exact same unit I was augmenting for had been apathetic and uninterested in actually training when I’d been down there full-time a few years earlier, they were suddenly very, very interested in training.
You can’t pull an armored division out of your ass in a couple of months. The amount of field time it takes to train just the basics, and get everyone on the same sheet of music? To develop the NCO and officer corps to the point where they know what they’re doing? It’s virtually impossible to do; if you doubt me, look at the Ukrainian situation with their forces; you cannot ramp up from virtually nothing in anything short of a year or two of On-the-Job-Training that’s gonna cost you a bunch of lives.
Back in the 18th Century, you could kinda get away with it all. A militia force just needed a little polishing, and some professional augmentation, and you’d be able to do things like the Mexican-American War and win them. Trying to do that same thing by the time the stage of complexity had reached WWII levels? Yeah; ain’t happening. Few people that don’t do this crap for a living really grasp the complexities. Even the professionals screw it up… Rumsfeld screwed the logistics up for OIF for a couple of years, just by red-X’ing the Time Phased Force Deployment List. He went through and cut units like a madman, without heed to effect down the road. One of the ones he deleted, in the name of reducing footprint in Kuwait, was the company of logistics specialists who were supposed to be doing cargo tracking for the theater. This led directly to the mess I had to deal with, in that there was a site near Doha that was about two miles on a side, completely filled with 20 and 40 foot containers that nobody knew what the contents were, due directly to that cargo tracking unit never deploying. That little bit of fighter pilot brilliance (that was Rumsfeld’s military experience, like Bush’s… Fighter pilot, with all that implies for ego and imperviousness to argument) probably cost the US literal billions and billions of dollars, ‘cos we couldn’t find squat in that mongoso pile of containers, and kept having to order in stuff from the ‘States on priority or buy it out in the local economy.
You don’t have a standing professional military? That’s what you get, and the guys who wrote that into the Constitution could not have been able to foresee that, though they should have, given the disasters our amateur military got them into during the Revolution…
Most civilian commentators have zero idea about what they’re talking about with this stuff; they just… Don’t. You have to have a standing army, spending a lot of time out in the field training, and which validates what it is doing in real war every so often. You don’t have that? Expect to lose the opening battles of every war you ever enter into, and expect a lot of deaths to pay the tuition for learning how armies work along the way. Kasserine Pass was actually a best-case scenario; it could have, and should have been a lot worse.
Change “Freedom of Movement” to “Freedom to Move Away”.
The Communist Slave States always built walls to keep people in, because if those people could leave they would be free and that is the opposite of what the CSS want.
If someone keeps you from leaving their house you have been kidnapped. Unlawfully restrained. Whatever the legal definition is.
“Freedom to Move In” makes slaves of those imposed upon.
If someone can enters your house, refuses to leave, and you cannot expel them, you have been invaded. They have effectively stolen your property. Denied you free movement in your own home.
So the True Libertarian Position is: You Are Free To Leave. I Am Free To Decide If and When You Can Impose On Me.
@TomJ
You’d be wrong on that one.
Thanks TomJ. I think you can fairly say I was completely and utterly wrong on that one. And good information to know. Appreciate you looking it up.
@Fraser: No problem. I only knew it was the case as an elderly cousin of my mother’s moved back to stay with her a few years ago, an almost exactly analogous situation.