General

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Caley McKibbin — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:32:07 GMT

Caley, were you a pollster?

I ran in provincial and federal elections and I've done canvassing for other campaigns.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

ulrichPf — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:31:19 GMT

I think some people are making the American immigration experience to be the rule, America is probably the exception. In Europe many immigrants do tend to perpetuate illiberal ways, if France were to become a dominate Muslim society I struggle to see how the ideas of liberty would flourish there (and no I am not supporting the burqa ban or expulsions). Lebanon used to be a very liberal Arab state, then the more conservative population overtook the them and now Lebanon is very differerent to where it once was, the population change was mostly internal and not an immigration change, but it does show that the dominant ideals are subject to demographics.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Prateek Sanjay — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:25:02 GMT

Caley, were you a pollster?

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Caley McKibbin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 05:19:57 GMT

Immigrants tend to be very inactive in politics, from my election experience.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Autolykos — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:48:22 GMT

Prateek Sanjay:
I am totally convinced by your post as well, Marko.

See, I am like John Maynard Keynes! "When the facts change, I change my mind."

Facts shouldn't be necessary. As I pointed out before, the statement "compromising liberalism to remain liberal" is inherently equivocal.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Marko — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:25:33 GMT

It is very disarming to have someone come around and agree with me. I am not used to it. :)

I am not necessarily too fond of the whole migration thing sentimentally either and believe that the existance of the state skews the migration currents so it is entirely possible than in ancap in many cases you would have less of it, or of a different kind, but in formalistic terms I agree with Block that even everything else remaining unchanged having no barriers on borders is clearly more consistent with libertarianism (as a punishment theory) than having them.

The idea of 200 million Chineese moving to some country and turning it into a CP dictatorship sounds plausible on paper, and I don't quite remember right now, but I think even Rothbard somewhere mentioned he would not mind barriers on borders in such a case. But if we think less abstractly and more in real world terms then we can see that the Chinese who like CP dictatorship can just stay at home. And those who move abroad in my experience do so in order to set up their Chinese shops and sell you cheap trinkets and are uninterested in politics which are anyway inaccessible to them because of the language barrier.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Prateek Sanjay — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:36:51 GMT

I am totally convinced by your post as well, Marko.

See, I am like John Maynard Keynes! "When the facts change, I change my mind."

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Marko — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:31:02 GMT

Britain did not become iliberal because of immigrants. That is a fact. Here the British have only themselves to blame. So it is an example of no value.

It does not make any sense for an "illiberal person" to emigrate to a liberal country. A person who likes illiberalism can migrate to an illiberal country. Lord knows there are plenty of them out there. He can thus be instantly enslaved upon arriving at his destination. He does not need to go through the bother of having to subvert a foreign country first. What kind of a convoluted plan would that be??

Migration into a liberal country is likely to be composed of disproportionaly liberally minded people, because they are migrating in part pressumably in order to be able to enjoy a more liberal climate.

Even Marx moved to Britain for that reason - not to overthrow British liberalism, but to be able to take advantage of it. Now that makes him a hypocrite, but it does not make him a threat. In fact AFAIK Britain never became Marxist, nor did that other refuge for Communists - Switzerland, but many reactionary-illiberal countries that ejected their own Communists to Switzerland, Belgium, Britain and so on, did.

Consider that most people of the Socialist Party of America in the 1920s were foreigners. Typically German, Hungarian, Polish, Russian,.etc.

Totally irrelevant. The Socialist Party of America was of marginal importance. The recent immigrants of the 1920s were one of the more powerless people in America then. It was not the Hungarians and Poles and Socialists who did most harm to freedom in America, but the Democrats and the Republicans and the Anglo-Saxons.

This is very much like contemporary conservatives causing hysteria about "Sharia law" but having a blind spot for the Patriot Act. Which is the real threat and which is the manufactured one?

Of course, it was also in the 1920s that immigration saw quotas put on it in America, with certain countries having very limited number of people allowed. Especially those I mentioned. Would any sane person have done any differently, when you know that a foreigner comes to your country with nothing but blatant malice and conspiracy?

You have been drinking too much of the paleo kool-aid. The Immigration Act of 1924 was about certain nationalities that were already here, not liking the nationalities that were now arriving, and making sure they would not come in great numbers. It was about good old fashioned ethnic prejudice. West European prejudice over East Europeans in this case. It had jack shit to do with Socialists. Always in the American history you had the nationalities already landed, resenting the immigrants just arriving. Only this time things were so far gone freedom-wise that barriers could be errected where before they would have been unthinkable even though the resentment was even greater, eg against the Irish in the middle of the 19th century.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Southern — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:33:50 GMT

I didn't know Britain became illiberal because of immigrants.

I cant speak specificly on cultural changes in Britain.

But immigrants do change the character and nature of the recieving society. History is full of examples where the movement of people changes the societies where they settle or completely supplant the native culture.

If those immigrants do not share the native populations love of freedom and liberty.... then yes large scale immigration could very well convert a freedom loving society into something else.

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

scineram — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:28:17 GMT

Solid_Choke:

Illiberal immigrants only make a liberal country into an illiberal one when the country is democratic. The problem isn't the immigrants, it is democracy.

All I see here is your assertion. Do you have an argument for that?

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Solid_Choke — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:56:48 GMT

I didn't know Britain became illiberal because of immigrants.

Illiberal immigrants only make a liberal country into an illiberal one when the country is democratic. The problem isn't the immigrants, it is democracy.

Democracy has historically been associated with a dynamic, expansionary area of collective choice, in the shape of big government. Coupling ‘liberal’ and ‘democracy’ could hardly be more incongruous than ‘smallbig government’. -Anthony de Jasay

Re: I found this comment very convincing.

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:23:59 GMT

It compromises nothing to inhibit people that are explicitly anti-liberal. You don't have to wait until after a mad killer shoots you to shoot him.