Writes David Hathaway:

I enjoyed reading your article on Open Borders and Joe Salerno’s article on Mises’s perspective. Good stuff.  Sometimes I think that we non-leftist libertarians all share the same positions on these things – if only we could find the right way to phrase it. We all realize the state steals and ruins everything it touches.  We all hate multiculturalism and forced integration.  We all recognize differences in cultural / racial / ethnic / religious / linguistic groups. We don’t think people are fundamentally all the same and need to be, should be, or can be homogenized.

I think that words like “nation” (just like words like “conservative”) may get people off-track and cause them to make assumptions about the meaning the other person assigns to that word. None of us like collective authority imposed over the individual against his wishes. But, we do recognize natural authority and natural lines of respect like parents over children, elders over youngsters, employers over employees, and some of us – God over man. We also realize people have rational preferences that should be honored on who they associate with, live near, and marry.

I agree with and enjoy Hoppe’s analysis of the differences in peoples coming from such things as harsh northern climates resulting in the survival of only those with higher intelligence and long-term thinking and planning horizons needed to ensure survival. So many of these crucial factors and traits can’t be (unfortunately) written about or blogged without earning the wrath of the cultural homogenizers who disallow any discussion of documented differences in people. We have to dance around them and refer to “other factors, traits, or preferences.” I cheer whenever Hoppe bravely speaks the truth on those things. I am too much of a chicken to do so. The idea of linguistic groups being marginalized covers part of the issue, but isn’t nearly the whole chimichanga.  Too bad people can’t have multi-faceted public discussions about these things without (as you said) being labeled a fascist. If we could, that would move the dialog along, especially amongst those who see the state as the problem that distracts people from private solutions.  Thanks for the good read.