December 5, 2008
by Larken Rose

 | Comment on the Blog

So much of most peoples' political beliefs, including among people who consider themselves to be pro-freedom, stems from false assumptions, and from the belief in that mythical beast called "authority."

We now scoff at the old belief in the "divine right of kings":  the notion that, by an accident of birth, someone had more rights than other people, and had the right to forcibly control those other people.  Silly, huh?  Well, that ridiculous belief is back, and it's called "illegal immigration."

How, exactly, does someone born several THOUSANDS miles away, in Alaska, have an inherent RIGHT to stand in El Paso, Texas, but someone born in Ciudad Juarez, just across the river, doesn't (without special permission from the tyrants in Washington)?

A lot changes when you lose the self-contradictory belief in "government."  A lot of concepts you accepted as self-evident evaporate, such as country borders, citizenship, patriotism, and nationalism.  Take, for example, that imaginary line between Mexico and the U.S.  What is it?  How did it get there?  It is the boundary between the dirt which one set of tyrants claims the right to rule, and the dirt which another set of tyrants claims the right to rule.  You can wave the flag all you want, and talk about "your" country and "patriotism," but the fact is, country boundaries are based entirely upon the inherently bogus, arbitrary claims of the RIGHT TO RULE made by various megalomaniacs.

You have no more "right" to be here than someone born in Zimbabwe, or Budapest, or anywhere else.  Therefore, you have no right to use force to stop them from coming here, nor can you delegate to someone ELSE the right to do so.  To put it as bluntly as I can, ALL "immigration laws" are 100% illegitimate, unjustifiable violence  --  all of them, in every country, under any circumstances.

You can wave "laws" around, wave the Constitution around, and make generalizations all you want, but if you forcibly stop someone who only wants to walk from one piece of dirt to another, YOU are the one initiating violence; YOU are the bad guy.  (If, on the other hand, the piece of dirt he wants to walk on is your own personal property, you have the right to keep him off.  But unless you believe you personally own this entire COUNTRY, that cannot possibly justify any "immigration" laws.)

Oddly, as often happens, in the case of immigration, FREEDOM gets the blame for problems caused by TYRANNY.  "But those dang Mexicans come over here and get public benefits, and welfare, and free schooling!"  So which is the problem:  them walking over an invisible line, or YOUR "government"  --  consisting entirely of Americans  --  forcibly robbing one person to give a handout to someone else?

(Article Continues Below)

If someone accepts stolen property, that's bad.  And it's bad regardless of where the person was born, or what imaginary lines he has walked over.  So why do Americans whine about "illegals" getting government benefits more than they do about the millions of American parasites doing the same thing?  (I won't even bother getting into the actual statistics on which demographic groups get more government goodies, and which produce more for the economy, because it's beside the point.)

And how backwards and fascist is it to have the attitude of:  "Well, you MIGHT apply for government handouts, so we're going to use force to keep you out of this country"?  Guilty until proven innocent?  Yep.  Those who want to come here "legally" have to go to great lengths to prove that they will be productive, and not a drain on society.  (Hilariously, they have to prove this to people in "government," who themselves are nothing BUT a drain on society.)

Mind you, I'm not saying I agree with "amnesty" for "illegals."  The only reason I don't, however, is that the people who have no right to STOP people from coming here also have no right to give them PERMISSION to come here, which is what "amnesty" means.  People born on this planet (or on any others, for that matter) have the right to come here, just as much as you have the right to be here.  It's a little funny that so many people whose grandparents came here from Europe, Africa, Asia, and so on, are now whining that Mexicans have no right to be on this piece of dirt.  (The Americans indians are probably getting a chuckle out of that.)  And don't whine about some doing it "legally," because that makes exactly NO difference when it comes to morality.  The morality of an act does NOT depend upon whether politicians have given it their blessing via "legislation."

As I've said before, the world looks very different when not viewed through "authority"-colored glasses.  On one hand, many things get a lot simpler.  On the other hand, you lose the intellectual cop-out of mass violence via "government" intervention as the default solution to all problems, whether it be poverty, crime, illiteracy, substance abuse, or even those dadburn "furriners" coming here.  Deal with them WITHOUT initiating violence, or stop pretending to be pro-freedom.

If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active:

Click Here for the Free Populist Party Newsletter

Larken Rose's interest in politics goes back to his youth. He was always passionately interested in the freedom of his fellow man, moving intellectually from conservatism through libertarianism to anarchism. How to be a Successful Tyrant is his first published work on the dynamics of tyranny, written between his conviction in federal court and his surrender to prison, where he is busy writing his next book.

More Articles from Larken Rose