The debate on borders has created a lot of division amongst libertarians and anarchists. Even outside of the libertarian world it is a highly contentious topic and rose to the surface during the last US (s)election with Donald Trump campaigning on building a wall across an entire continent to keep immigrants out.
That, like most of his campaign promises, was forgotten within seconds of winning but it still remains a very emotional topic for many. Particularly those in Europe who have seen millions of immigrants enter into that region in a very short period of time.
Debates amongst anarchists to date have usually just shown that the "pro borders" anarchist isn't an anarchist at all.
This weekend the best debate I've seen on the topic yet was held between Larken Rose and Christopher Chase Rachels. You can watch it here if you'd like:
Larken held steadfast to the Non Aggression Principle (NAP) which is at the core of anarchist and libertarian thought. While Chase did as well but really contorted the meaning of things such as public and private property to allow him to claim adherence to the NAP.
After watching the debate I decided to go for a walk with my five anarchist dogs in the fourth most dangerous city in the world, Anarchapulco, and give my thoughts on the great borders debate.
My thoughts center more around discussing how all of these issues were caused by governments and their problem/reaction/solution dialectic and the importance of ridding the world of the superstition of government as quickly as possible.
You can hear all my thoughts here:
Interestingly, my dogs had a border dispute with 2 immigrant street dogs who moved into our area and confronted us while I was recording my video.
The dogs ended up reaching a non violent mutually agreeable solution.
Let's hope humans can one day do the same.
I am a foreign citizen in uk. A little diferent but uk is facing the same problem. Imigration. I spoke what my eyes can see. Imigration is not a problem. The true problem is the failure of political and economic politics that instead of solutions they just delay the problems.. we are in XXI century. People don't understand the reality... employment numbers are increasing all over the rich countries.. the explanation? Automation.. yes search for a bit.. of course is easy to blame imigration... but our current economic system is not ready at all for all the transformation in economy in next 20 years.. there is soo much to said but definitely close borders is not the answer!!!! Great post !!!! Upvote and following!!!!
Lucy always disobeys!
Jerry is worse than Lucy. He'll never sit so I don't even try. But Lucy I know, knows how to sit, she just doesn't like being told what to do. Anarchist dogs...
Borders violate the NAP in the first place and the government has no legitimate claim over all of this land.
But as played (them having taken ownership), you can't start applying the NAP at that point, because they already own it and should act accordingly (much like after they steal the money and build the road hopefully they can at least put stop signs in reasonable places .. and we don't regard this as breaking our right to travel).
Jeff, what I would ask you and Larken is: In a voluntary community, do you think anybody at all can show up and live in that community? Or is there some mechanism to make sure you're good/safe/etc?
I don't have an opinion on exactly what policies the government should take or whether Trump's positions are better than the mainstream, but I think you guys are wrong in your application of NAP here.
When somebody has ownership of something, it's theirs to make the rules for. So as long as the govt owns the land (which is inherently what we're talking about when we talk about state actors policing state borders), it's correct and consistent with the NAP going forward that they make decisions for the borders just like you decide who crosses your front door.
The focus should be on challenging the government's claim to ownership over land, NOT on challenging what they do next which is consistent with that claim.
It's you guys who aren't consistently applying NAP. (It's a bit like a referee who makes a bad call to try to offset a previous bad call, rather than just calling it fairly from here.)
And I'd even suggest it's something of a misdirection; the state doesn't mind the open-border argument one bit, but they're actually threatened by the root idea of unrightful ownership.
Goverment is not a problem.
People are.Stop OBEYING.
War, welfare, and economic distress is caused by the state. The state is the primary facilitator of mass migration. Open borders are great without the state!
the state is the only reason borders exist
the state is useless
well the state is the only thing keeping corporations from behaving like warlords in africa... so i appreciate it for what it does for me.
i cant fight someone with billions of dollars and a private army...
if the state didnt exist, life would be much worse off.
for example.. african warlords
the state funds warlords with foreign aid
"..private tyranny. The worst kind of tyranny. Tyranny by unaccountable private concentrations of wealth."
corporations use the state to protect their various interests, and monopolies; the state is useless
"The government is the ONE institution in which the people can change. The one institution you can affect by participation without institutional change. Thats exactly why all the anger and fear is directed against the government. The government has a defect, its potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect, they're pure tyrannies. Therefore you want to keep corporations invisible and focus all anger on the government. So you don't like something, your wages are going down, blame the government. Not blame the guys in the fortune 500 because you don't read the fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers. It's obvious why big corporations who are fighting the everlasting battle for the minds of men would want that to be the picture you have."
On the other side of this economic disaster, we'll be lucky to have our personal boundaries. People are going to move. Mexico probably will pay to build a wall, to stop Americans from flooding into their country. It will be in everyones best interest to just be nice, and get along.
Hola Jeff! Been enjoying all your videos on Youtube and now here. Am also, a subscriber to the dollar vigilante for 2 years now. And as a fellow Anarchist, spend most of my time in Baja California MX. I am trying to get traction on Steemit and noticed you are only following 1. Any chance that you could had me? Muchas Gracias! Thanks for the intro to Dr. Morse. My wife and I are on all fruits for 6 weeks now!!! ;-)
youve gotta do more to get Jeffs attention!
he is so rich that he is only stimulated by the most impressive of human actions
so u woould need to somehow fnd out what stuff he likes and also realize he doenst seem to reply to a single comment inthis post
i believe he just post here for tthe money and doesnt even interact with peopel anymore or if so rarely
i saw some old posts fro him by ollarvigilante where he got into a war with berniesanders but yeah he was talking to people then, but yeah quite the character an flaunting his wealth an why not he made it all from Bitcoin!
ppeople who get rch from bitcoin DESERVE to be rich!
ok @higomex u should try and make longer posts with more hotos like ur recent one! thats good keep going but u also need to make some serious waves and splash some water at some whales and help the steemit caue somehow to help everyonwith a higehr steem price
Thanks for the valuable feedback!
Taxsation is theft, and a welfare state with open borders just ends up becoming a bigger taxation and welfare state.
Finally some one who can see reality over ideology. I wish everyone got magic unicorn ponies and buckets of gold, but the logistics of it are impossible.
True, the US welfare state is like 20Trillion in debt, only way forward for them is a war, unless it cashes.
beautiful post, love them dogs!
Modern day slaves
Borders......... pets don't don't need no stinkin' borders......... Try keeping your pet out of your neighbors unfenced yard. Whoooof!
Boarders, just like private property, violate the NAP in the most fundamental ways. You simply cannot restrict movement on any land that you are not actively using and would disturb you.
It doesn't matter if that's a boarder with check-points, or if that's at your 500mile long ranch in the Arizona desert when you live in Texas.
It's fundamentally aggressive and to claim it as otherwise is simply dishonest and sickening, especially if you claim force is reasonable to protect such areas.
Private property as in personal property, such as the house you live in and the area around it, or anywhere else nearby you "own" that could have issue, such as if you have a farm with crops surrounding your house, isn't violating the NAP so long as you allow passage if need be, or for a leave-no-trace sleeping of the visitors if you own all the land around.
Otherwise you're the aggressor as you leave the other party no other option but to, in your opinion, violate your rights.
Europe and the USA will have literally a billion refugees because of how corporates and animal-eaters are ruining the environment, what they have is not something they need to deal with. They need to deal with the future, this problem they have now of some million is a non-issue.
and if the state didnt exist the corporations in america would have already taken it for themselves at gunpoint from us... not just taxes either... all of it
The idea that the state exists to protect the people from unbridled capitalism is completely baseless. The statists are not anti-capitalist. Far from it. In fact, Wall Street banks and Capitol Building offices are often staffed by the same people at different points in their careers. So, if your argument held true, our supposed protectors are also the very same people you claim we need to be protected from. Sorry, man: there is no separation of corporation and state. It's the same beast.
Good point. The idea that many of these corporations would even exist - let alone threaten people with slavery without government is a joke. Most of them depend on government privilege of some sort to even sustain their business (patents, government contracts, other IP rights, eminent domain, etc...). The State-backed corporate structure in the developed world and the government are just two branches of one single coercive structure.
A person can't legitimately own something if they stole it by force of arms through violence, lies, or coercion. This also goes for groups of people whether they want to call themselves "government" or not.
Labels. Don't. Matter.
If I violently stole something from someone else, it doesn't mean I own it. It just makes me a violent psycho scumbag who takes things that don't belong to him.
This goes for groups of people called "government" as well.
Who gives anyone else the right to violently steal from people? Their own narcissistic whiny wicked evil entitlement? Disgusting at every moral and ethical level.
At the end of the day we all make the choice whether to harm or not harm someone else. Its up to each person as an individual to decide to act in a moral upright way that doesn't bring avoidable suffering to someone else.
Mistakes happen sure I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about pre-planned pre-meditated violence on someone else for personal gain or just even overall psychotic mentality.
It's gross.
Thank you as always for the great work you do. Would you consider please, to read my one and only post ?
Hey Jeff,
You won't remember me although we met years ago in Vancouver through a friend of mine named Paul Andreola. You seem to have made quite a change from the Stockhouse days. Nice to see another Canadian on Steemit!
I am an international citizen living in United Kingdom. Like elsewhere , UK is facing the same problem of immigration. I am stating the situation that went through before me. Immigration is not a problem. The true problem is the failure of political leaders and the ruling bodies , they instead of solving these problems , just delay the problems. We are in 21st century. People don't understand the reality. It's the time to wake up ! The employment rates are increasing all over the rich countries, why ?! Because they are honest and dealing their subjects with true obligation. Of course it is easy to blame immigration and the Immigrants but , the truth is , our current economic system is not ready at all for all the transformation in economy in the next 20 years.
Dude, look what happened in my sleepy Caribbean town when some money typhoon came in a put up a 100m + wall in our community. It's happening everywhere. Not even "out where God left his shoe is safe anymore!" Read my blog on what happen here:https://steemit.com/nature/@organiccacao/walls-and-how-people-respond-to-them
I am not letting my doors be open. Even though this post of yours is from some time ago, it is still just as hot and new and infuriating to me that it is even up for debate. This was never an issue in the past before 2008. It would never be considered for a topic. Why? yes... because even from more primitive times people set a fire to ward off beasts that would come upon you. Sentry's are posted to watch a camp day and night for any danger that may come to the edge or come close.
I see this topic as being a training issue for the people to allow the introduction of thieves and dangerous entities intentionally introduced with as little resistance as possible, by our and the world leaders. As you said, look at the European Union... Even though it is painfully obvious to the residents of Europe of what has been done to their boarders and the influx of warriors intentionally introduced by Europe's elected and non-elected leaders. All of these leaders go to secretive meetings or send their representatives to ponder on how to subdue and cause as much chaos to the country. To un-employ as many as possible to become Dependant on government handouts and subservient to the leaders. It is all a set up of a Grand scale on a Global Scale. But, the news, the peoples way of getting the news of bad things happening have been bought, and caused to lie and keep secrets of what is happening to the country.
I applaud you for speaking the truth and making it aware to the people to get them to think.
Thank you for your post and all your posts...