Some libertarian on Twitter said that my arguments against immigration were bad. I hadn’t by that time made any, except to point out his utilitarian argument that measles rates had not visibly increased was a non sequitur. Yet in honor of his request I said:
My argument is I don’t want them. This is my home, not theirs, and they are not welcome.
That is all the argument I need.
This blew up. Somehow the libertarian contingent found it, and the Open Borders people, and I received many replies. Most were of the screaming rage category. “Nazi” was the nicest name I was called. “Woke” was the strangest. No reply was thoughtful, but some replies did have some content. So, even though I owe nobody an explanation, I here generously answer the most common counter-arguments.
These counters are not the exact wording, but summaries. You’ll recognize the species in each case.
Whites Sticking Up For Themselves Is Woke
Blacks (or any other group) looking out for their own people is not woke. Woke is rampant egalitarianism. Woke is saying there is no difference between, say, blacks and whites, and that any difference that exists must be the fault of whites, who therefore must be punished and have what is theirs taken (by government force) and given to those who do not have.
Woke is therefore Open Borders, for the same reason.
But again, blacks do nothing wrong per se, and even do much that is right, by looking out for their own. Whites do wrong by constant hand-wringing and wailing blacks aren’t equal to whites. The obvious and real problem is woke whites, and the worst of these, like fat James Lindsay, are those bizarrely slinging “woke” at their enemies, with no comprehension what the word means.
I don’t mean to focus solely on black-white relations, but on any group-to-group interaction. My looking out for my own people is not woke, for I claim the opposite of egalitarianism. My people are superior to other peoples at being what they are, and their peoples are superior to mine in being what they are. Just as men are superior to women at being men, and women superior to men at being women. Reality is recognizing these superiorities—and of course weaknesses—and negotiating their interactions at the borders, whether actual or metaphorical.
All egalitarians are frightened into hersteria by the word superior.
The Land You Claim Is Yours Is Stolen
Not one person who uses this false stolen-land argument thinks it through. It is pure vice signaling.
First, the land was not stolen, as history teaches. Second, even if it was, then everybody who is now here has to give it up to whoever it was they say it was stolen from. This includes those making the stolen-land argument, who must also be evicted.
Who the land is given to will be some designated people or peoples. Which is an acknowledgement there are differences in peoples, which the egalitarian denies. The whole thing is idiotic.
Measles Rates Aren’t Up & Just Think Of The Soaring GDP
I reject all utilitarian arguments used in service of moral ones outright. One fellow showed me a CBO model which argued that each immigrant added such-and-such number of dollars to the GDP or economy or something.
First, all models only say what they are told to say. The CBO told its model to say “Adding immigrants increases money” (or whatever). Its model then concluded “Adding immigrants increases money”. The model is therefore no evidence at all of the morality of Open Borders.
Second, adding immigrants means giving immigrants what we now have, even if everybody’s paycheck increases. An immigrant can’t have nothing of what’s ours, for they at least take up space, which is ours. I do not own them this.
That’s Your Opinion, Briggs. I Vote For Open Borders. Now Where Are We?
The Voting Fallacy says that right and wrong can be decided by vote. This fallacy is necessarily beloved in a democracy, which teaches people that right and wrong are what “the people” decide. That’s just silly, as all experience proves. Endless loud propaganda is the direct result of this fallacy.
In any case, the idea our people can be dispossessed because 50 + epsilon percent say they should be is preposterous. Majority vote only works in small matters.
So Don’t Take Migrants Into Your House. We’ll Move Them Next Door
Curiously, many assumed I do not own a home, or that I am on welfare, which they posited as the reason for my dissatisfaction, and therefore my argument on these matters should not count.
The most charitable response is to say this is incoherent, and that if it were true I was suffering, then I would be because of our Open Borders policy, and that I’m not allowed to criticize that which afflicts me does not follow.
In any case, to say that all that concerns me is what is between my four walls is, I would have thought, plainly ridiculous. Have libertarians never had to venture outside? Have they been to, say, downtown Minneapolis? How anybody can make arguments like this is proof enough democracy will always fail.
What Makes You Think Deporting All Immigrants Will Guarantee A “Functioning Healthy Society”
Given that diversity plus proximity equals violence, turmoil, and conflict, what I can guarantee is less of all that. And to allow my people to decide their own fate, without they themselves asked to assimilate to immigrants cultures, as we see is happening in, say, the UK.
Your Home Is Not The Entire Country And You Don’t Speak For The Rest Of Us
Yes, it is. And yes, I do. It is you who do not speak for us. You speak for those who are not us.
You Are Not A Christian
Yes, I am. Are you?
You’re Xenophobic
It’s better to say I’m my-own-people-ophilic (is there a Greek word for this?).
Who Are You To Decide?
I am me. I say enough: no more. Somebody has to say when. This is my home, not theirs. I say when.
I think I hit all the main ones. Did I miss any?
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Bravo. All common sense answers. Although, as per the title of this essay, the only answer that needs giving is, “because I live here.” The morality of that statement is clear and inviolate.
Briggs ==> As in all these “immigration” threads, there is no distinction made between those who come to this country:
1. Those who came with the desire to leave their homelands and their citizenship behind, and become Americans — meaning U.S. citizens. Those who followed the established rules and laws for doing so. All of my ancestors (with the exception of a possible Native American) did this, were eventually welcomed (if not at first) and are those who made this country what it is.
2. Those who violate[d] the laws and rules about immigration into the United States and yet expect all the rights and privileges of lawful immigrants.
Legal immigrants are to be welcomed and encouraged to assimilate into the general population — indeed, should be helped to do so with “English as a second language” programs, welcome committees, help with employment if needed.
Gate crashers should be shown the door.
That said, almost all my Latino [meaning Spanish speaking] friends and neighbors are essentially not quite legal immigrants — they are great people and work hard, many at two jobs, to support their families both here and back home, raise kids, buy homes and contribute to the economy.
Any new system for dealing with this mess should include more than just “how did you get here?” judgements. What to do with those here now must weigh the overall picture for each family and open the path to citizenship for those honest and hard-working people wishing to become citizens.
“Given that diversity plus proximity equals violence, turmoil, and conflict..”
But this is just a model, Briggs. It only tells you what you programmed it to say.
Besides, I doubt it is additive, but rather at least multiplicative, and probably needs some floor functions.
The continent is no longer a howling, empty wilderness. However, it is being refilled with savages.
No more. They have to go back. All of them. Every last one.
And those who enable, encourage, and support them must go to jail. Every last one.
William, you know I like you, your opinions, your blog. But your twitt is not Christian: one of the works of mercy is to be welcoming to the traveler. That’s against that spirit, obviously. Of course, you have to have order at the borders, but to say that, absolutely, you are against immigrants is xenophobic, obviously. Maybe, I am Spanish, Catholic, and we formed a world in which we have Guadalupe and El Inca Garcilazo de la Vega
and San Martin de Porres and San Pedro Claver and Francisco Fajardo [Indian founder of Caracas, in 1567, 50 years before the Mayflower] (just to bring those examples, accompanied of a very big et cetera) and heavy culture and race mixing in the Americas, since 1492 onwards, which, therefore, you cannot understand. But that statement is terrible
We need no immigration legal or illegal. It’s my country not there’s and there’s nothing stopping anyone from learning English and staying right the Hell where they are.
Kip,
“Immigration is good as long as it is legal” works as a bumper sticker for boomer republicans, but it’s a dumb argument without a heck of a lot of nuance added to it. Here’s a few problems:
1.) Imagine that immigration laws are just dropped, and that everyone on Earth is declared a US citizen (or at least becomes one upon crossing the border.) Then according to this line of reasoning there is no problem, but obviously this would not be good for the country.
2.) An implicit part of the argument is that legal immigrants are good because our laws are well formed, but people using this argument never address whether this is true or not (you certainly didn’t.) And really if they criteria is only that legal immigrants are good and illegal immigrants are bad, how would it even be possible to criticize the laws? Criticism of laws is only possible when you are using a criteria of morality prior to the laws themselves.
3.) You say that legal immigrants will assimilate after they arrive. But why should they? There are no laws saying that they must. How would such laws even work, if we treat legal immigrants as US citizens> (I.e. do we set up a system where someone whose family has lived in the US for six generations could be deported for “not assimilating properly” or do we make legal immigrants second class citizens with a citizenship that can be revoked at any time? I doubt you’d support either option.) The best we can do is “be welcoming” and “encourage them to assimilate.” But note that all that stuff can be done for ILLEGAL immigrants too, and you yourself even say it is being done! So “Legal immigrants are fine because they will assimilate” immediately becomes “anyone is okay to come in.”
4.) This is actually the most important part: the whole discussion completely sidesteps the question of whether there is an actual nation with cultures and peoples which are worth preserving. People must be treated as interchangeable units only distinguished by whether they have the support of the government or not. Suppose I live in a community where most residents are in families that have been there for at least three generations. If that community is overrun by foreigners it will be destroyed, or at least irrevocably changed, and this will be true whether the foreigners are there illegally or whether they have been shipped in legally. Why should I be glad to give up my community in the second case, but not the first?
Carlos,
Hospitality towards travelers is a virtue that is supported by the Bible, as well as many cultures throughout history (including the pioneers on the American Frontier.) However note that this hospitality is towards TRAVELERS. And travelers move on after a time.
Similarly the laws of Israel stress mercy towards the alien, as do the prophets. But they do NOT say that aliens in Israel must be considered Hebrews. Similarly, Egypt sinned by mistreating the Hebrews when they themselves were aliens in that land, but the Bible does NOT say that this makes the Hebrews Egyptians. Nations are distinct.
Mr. Guerra
“welcoming the stranger” being interpreted to mean granting permanent residence or citizenship or having anything to do with Spain in Latin America is an invention of the latter half of the 20th century
I both agree and disagree. Yes, citizens own their countries (well, in the U.S.; in Canada and most of the world the government owns the country and the citizens) and should say who is, and is not, welcome. And yes, legal procedures arising from a concensus among citizens should be followed with those who break the rules deported (but maybe only one generation, not seven..)
However.. there should also be both exceptional cases at the border (or the pre-border paperwork process) and among the illegals already in the country. For example, I’d give any illegal who holds a regular job (or is a student); demonstrates an IQ over 110 on Stanford-Binet; reads/writes/speaks clear English; and passes a test on American (or Canadian in my case) history a short path to citizenship.
Thank you Briggs, for your pithy statements, though I fear that most Latin-American migrants would have trouble pronouncing “pithy”… pensular Spaniards might have a clearer path.
And, speaking of clear paths; Don’t we all admire Joe Biden for scattering caltrops in the path of the incoming administration..?
BRIGGS YOU XENOFOOL!
You don’t want immigrants, do you???!!!
Well, I don’t want NEIGHBORS!!!
Not in my apartment condominium, not on any sides of my second house’s street, not anywhere on my acres upon acres of undeveloped isolated farmland property!
All that noise, all those loitering children mucking about, all that pressure to socialize, all those lawn signs for that party candidate! I hate it! I hate it all!
But the reality remains that I can’t maintain all this comfortable infrastructure by myself, so who is going to do it? YOU???
Let’s compromise!
I’ll tell you what this country needs… SLAVES!!!
Neither immigrant, nor neighbor, just a sizable workforce that does what they are told and paid nothing with no upward social mobility and lives just as disposable as their income.
We need Slave Visas!
At least up until Musk manufactures enough robots who can be remotely operated over Starlink by Indians from New Delhi wearing immersive VR headsets! Then we’d only require Remote-Migrant-Contracts!
Think Briggs, think! If the Indians can just pilot a drone worker to operate a smartphone cover accessory shop and bring Tim Apple his cuppa and paint the American flag on the Mars rockets, all without ever leaving their native land, then we will have all of the benefits without any of the drawbacks!
Just don’t allow the blacks the right to operate any robots!
The last thing we need are robot protestors peacefully burning cities down because a black-operated dronebot couldn’t recharge after a white police officer put a knee on it’s solar panel.
The argument I usually get is “compassion”. The thing is, I just don’t care. Too bad, so sad. I have a normal capacity for empathy and sympathy, but it’s finite. At some point, the demands are overwhelming, and a line has to be drawn. Illegal aliens are, for the most part, detrimental to any country, which is a good place to draw that line.
The ‘Xenophobic Argument’ is the most interesting, because it is both the easiest to make and the most inherently flawed.
To be xenophobic is to fear or hate strangers or foreigners. To simply say of illegal aliens, ‘I don’t want them…and they are not welcome’ displays neither fear nor hatred. It’s simply a statement of fact. Illegal aliens have not been invited. No other reason is required to quite legitimately — without fear or hatred — refuse entry to the property that we own.
Does that sound hostile? It shouldn’t.
There are about 127 million households in the United States and I, personally, have an open invitation (don’t even need to knock) to exactly one of them (my own). I don’t need to ask permission to enter; I have my own key & guaranteed access, and no one has the right to ask me to leave. These are my guaranteed rights for that single piece of property. For all the rest of the 127M, I require an invitation in order to feel welcome.
So illegal… unwanted… uninvited immigration? There is no invitation. There is not even the polite / ‘knock on the front door’ request for an invitation. Rather the illegal immigrant has simply broken in & entered. In their wake we find the shattered lock and the muddy footprints as they make themselves at home.
Is it hateful, then, to ask them / expect them / force them to leave? Of course not, nor would it be hateful of you to call the police if you found me camping in your basement or raiding your refrigerator. I have no right to be there. My very presence in your basement is evidence that I am a criminal. It is not hateful to arrest / expel a criminal. Rather it is justice.
We lock the doors to our home because we feel it is important that our homes & families are safe & secure & protected from the those to whom we haven’t granted entry. Why should our nation be any different?
People, “I don’t want immigrants” != “I don’t want illegal immigrants.”
Briggs, though I think your responses are a bit straw man and are not very charitable, it’s good to know that you don’t want immigrants. Why is it good? I appreciate clues that confirm my views of people. Observing the behavior of people (immigrants or not) behavior is my hobby.
Some illegals (not all) are fentanyl mule cartel mafia footsoldier murder rapist satanic blood sucking criminal meth head gangsters. That kind ought to be shot, which would save the cost of transporting them anywhere. But a Hollywood psycho filth director’s Salvadoran maid could remain — if her employer departs the country. Fair is fair.
On another note, St. Juan Diego, canonized almost 500 years after his miracle, is the only full-blooded Aztec saint. His Nahuatl name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, meaning “singing eagle”. He was a native American who didn’t immigrate anywhere, although 20 million people every year visit the church he founded.
> It’s better to say I’m my-own-people-ophilic (is there a Greek word for this?).
Yes. Homophilia, I believe. But Wikipedia tells me that means “liking homosexuals”. It doesn’t list an appropriate term, but it does list “oikophobia” as having a metaphorical meaning of strongly disliking one’s own culture or nation. Oikos is home. So, to prevent the misunderstanding regarding homosexuality, I propose “oikophilia” as the practical Greek word for what you describe.
There’s no way I can judge this objectively. I am a dyed in the wool misanthropist and much as I despise Bill Gates I applaud his thinly-veiled efforts to make sure there are a lot less people in general. Those that are left should be White people like me… probably not so rabidly misanthropic though.
JH, Briggs only said, “That’s all the argument I need.”
As in, his statement/argument is rhetorical.
Yet, you’ve jumped to your preferred conclusion… because you wanted to!
So we’re learning about you too JH! And it confirms the worst about what we’ve known about you all along!
The “I don’t want immigrants” argument has one big thing going for it – brevity. In our sound-bitey world, that’s a big deal.
There are many practical reasons that an open border is bad for the US (and many of us firmly believe that what weakens the US is invariably bad for the world, at least eventually). On the other hand, I firmly believe that carefully considered and properly executed legal immigration is essential for the future of the US, and to maintain our place as the shining example for the rest of the world.
Most of the arguments used by the open borders crowd are easy to dismiss. For example, the “it’s the Christian thing to do” argument. This argument is used to justify all sorts of government intrusiveness and thievery and redistribution of wealth. But it’s a hollow argument; I’m certainly no expert on the Bible, but it seems clear that Jesus was all about the individual, and didn’t address ruling governments in any meaningful way. It’s easier to make the argument that government largesse works to relieve individuals of their Christian responsibility to do good on an individual level, as in “I don’t need to worry about my neighbor’s problems and suffering, there are government agencies for that”.