Open Borders

You have all seen the images: the million-man march coming through Mexico toward the border of the United States.  I suppose you have also seen the pictures of hundreds of individuals climbing the fence that separates Spanish Africa from Morocco (did you know there was a part of Spain in Africa?).

Is it peaceful immigration, people looking for a better life, escaping tyranny?  Is it an invasion?  Can it be both?  How would you decide?  Are these people looking to establish homes in the unoccupied vastness of the Rockies, the deserts, the Alps?

Are these people armed or unarmed?  Are they acting on behalf of another state?  Are they being supported by a malevolent non-state actor?  Maybe a (so-called) “non-governmental organization”?  Does an invasion require tanks and helicopters to be classified as such?  Is it OK if it is a private, mercenary army and not a state military?

If these people were marching toward your home, would you allow them an open border?  If you were paying someone – voluntarily or not – to provide protection from invasion, would you expect them to allow these “visitors”?

Until individuals in the west have complete private property rights, any talk of open borders is naïve at best and tyrannical at worst.  Until individuals in the west have complete private property rights, someone other than you will be making decisions about who does and doesn’t cross borders.

Until there are no state borders, it will be the state that makes the decision on who crosses the borders.  In a world of state borders, every decision regarding immigration is a centrally-planned, state-enforced-at-the-end-of-the-barrel-of-a-gun decision; even a position of open borders.

Anyone who calls for open borders in a world of state borders wants you impotent in the face of the million-man march.  This they describe as “liberty.”  If you don’t think The Camp of the Saints paints the picture, take a look again at the pictures from Mexico and Spain.

Anyone who calls for open borders in a world of state borders might be mouthing the word “liberty”; just keep in mind: it isn’t your liberty that they are talking about.

Reprinted with permission from Bionic Mosquito.