January 30, 2024 • 67 mins
Like most libertarians, The Brownstone Institute's Jeff Tucker has long been a proponent of open borders. So have I. But we both feel that events of the past few years require a more thoughtful response than the standard anti-state-border rhetoric. Including, perhaps, admissions that we've been wrong all along.
Have we?
Jeff and I explore some of the complexities of the current crisis along the southern border of the US, the Texas standoff, and immigration more generally. What's happening at the border goes well beyond what we generally think of as "immigration", and Jeff and I talk about what's behind that, and the ways in which immigrants are being used to further political agendas and disrupt the democratic process. We also talk about ways in which the post-9-11 tightening of immigration restrictions have exacerbated the problem.
I talk a little about my experience living in Japan – a country with strict immigration controls, and a strong, cohesive culture that I don't think many Americans can relate to. And as much as government management of immigration has created problems and allowed for immigration to be weaponized, it's not entirely clear that a stateless society would have the ability to produce or protect cultural cohesion in this way. (Although, to be fair, in most of the world, the state fails at this too.)
SPOILER: We don't come away with any answers. But we both agree that these are questions that need to be wrestled with, and we will continue to wrestle.
Related: My recent conversation with Bob Murphy has some insights on the stateless society that are relevant to this conversation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast.
That's all about solutions.
If you're tired of complainingabout tyranny and you want to
take action to create a freerworld, this is the place for you
.
Join us as we ask what then,must we do?
All right, I am here todayagain with Jeffrey Tucker.
(00:27):
Jeffrey is the president of theBrownstone Institute.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for being here.
I asked you to come on the showtoday to talk about immigration
.
I know you've been, like me, along-time libertarian, advocate
of individual rights, enemy ofthe state, all that.
(00:50):
You've recently had a change ofheart with regard to
immigration.
Can you tell me a little bitabout that?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Sure, I think this time last year I was on John
Stelzel's show on NationalTelevision, on Fox, passionately
arguing for open borders.
In fact, I think I've been foropen borders since I was in
college.
My friend was running for theTexas State Legislature and he
was libertarian.
He came to me he said I can'tpossibly support open borders, I
(01:21):
would simply never get elected.
I said well, that means you'rejust selling out your principles
for power and that's evil in mymind.
So we actually had a breakup ofour friendship over the issue.
Just to be clear, and also I'vewritten about the issue for a
very long time it seemed to methat the closed borders was
connected to protectionism,which was in turn related to
(01:43):
xenophobia and racialistpolicies and the aspiration of
the homogeneous state, which isa demographically, religiously,
linguistically homogeneous state, which is a liberal, and so on.
So I had it all worked out inmy mind.
I had it all figured out untilrecently.
(02:04):
And then at some point how doesit work?
I think facts just sort ofslammed down in your head to the
point that you just can't.
You can't dig your way out ofit, and this wave of migration
that we've seen over the lastfive years, and I'm not prepared
(02:26):
yet to go back in time andunderstand how long I was wrong,
but it's clear that over thelast five years, what's happened
is the immigration system isbeing used to manipulate
political outcomes, and that isan extremely wicked way to use
demographics against the people,and that is exactly what's
(02:53):
going on.
So, in other words, this isanother way that the state is
attacking us.
In the same way, they tax us,inflate the money supply,
regulate our businesses, give usstay home orders or whatever,
they're also doing this as a wayof destabilizing democracy and
(03:14):
pillaging the public purse anddemoralizing us in the process
and dispossessing citizens ofthe country, the alleged owners
of this system.
I mean just by way of review.
I mean, the idea of governmentand a free society is that the
(03:37):
citizens control.
There's some relationship therebetween the government and the
people, that citizens have someimpact on the laws under which
they live.
I mean that's sort of the idea.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Do you actually believe that, though?
I mean, do you really thinkthat's how it operates?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
No, it's not how it operates, but that's the ideal I
mean that was.
The ideal is that it washatched out during the
Enlightenment, and I stillbelieve.
I mean in some broad sense thatthere's no government that
could possibly be legitimate, nosystem of managing the commons
let's get away from the termgovernment the system of
managing the commons couldpossibly be legitimate unless it
(04:14):
has the consent of the governed.
I mean, so there has to be somerelationship there.
This, I think, is what theDeclaration of Independence says
, and I believe in that.
But when the government turnsagainst the people, it has
myriad ways of doing it, and Idid not understand that
manipulating demographics inthis sort of shocking ways could
(04:39):
be a part of that.
But that's exactly what's goingon and it's very cynical and
once I saw it I couldn't unseeit.
Basically, it's that if thegovernment can identify a
population of people that theycan cause to migrate and
(05:00):
manipulate those people forpurposes of doing out of public
benefits or for electionoutcomes, they might use those
people as fodder in a politicalwar against the people.
And now one response to that isoh, that's ridiculous.
You can't possibly say thatevery Syrian, algerian,
(05:23):
zimbabwean, you know, venezuelanwho pours across the border
illegally is going to be a Bidensupporter, and that's true.
I cannot say that.
But these people are veryclever and they're dealing with
a lot of averages, so it doesn'tmatter.
All they need is a relativecertainty that 51% of them are
(05:45):
going to vote for their way, andthere's no way to deny that.
I mean just based on theempirical records here.
So this is not disdainfultowards minorities.
It's not putting down peoplebased on their foreignness or
alienness.
It's just a matter of alertingpeople to the fact that the
(06:08):
ruling class that's currentlymanaging the administrative
state is making a very good betthat by flooding the country
with as many immigrants aspossible, they're going to be
able to affect election outcomeswhich keep them permanently in
power.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And you could say this.
You could make the sameargument about those who support
welfare policies making use ofghetto populations.
There's a population that's nowdependent on these policies
that you've created.
They're now your supporters.
They're now going to keepvoting for those policies.
So what you're saying isn'teven necessarily a statement
(06:49):
about where you're from.
It's more what are yourincentives?
What do you have incentives tokeep supporting these policies?
And so you're looking at thisas the motivation for basically
getting rid of immigrationcontrols at the border.
(07:10):
I mean, that's what it isYou're saying.
The motivation is reallyelections.
It's getting voters.
What about other things?
I mean some of the things thatwe've seen in Europe too, like
social destabilization.
Do you think that's deliberate?
Do you think that's somethingthat people are trying to create
(07:31):
here?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, I think the answer to that is yes.
I don't understand the Europeansituation very well and let me
say also this that most normalpeople are incapable of even
conceiving of a deeply maliciousaspiration for society, culture
(07:53):
and politics.
We don't understand the Joker.
We watch the movie and we'reintrigued by it.
We think that is one weird guy,but we don't imagine that the
Joker becomes the ruling classand puts together major
organizations like the WorldEconomic Forum with tentacles in
(08:15):
every administrative stateapparatus, and then the
Joker-style theory is preachedin all the universities and then
broadcast out to the mainstreammedia, and then the
administrative state works withtech companies to block people
who disagree with the Joker.
We can't even imagine that.
It seems ridiculous.
Yeah, it seems ridiculous, andyet I'm sorry to say that it
(08:37):
seems like that's basically agood description of what's going
on, and I think this is mostlycoming about.
My theory and anybody candisagree with me and tell me
that it goes back to the war ofthe roses, I don't care, but my
theory is that this attitudetowards destroying the social
(08:58):
order we have came about becauseof the rise of Boris Johnson in
the UK, whose mandate was toimplement Brexit, which
destroyed, which was a directattack on the idea of the
European Union, forced EuropeanUnion, the creation of a
(09:19):
supernational government inBrussels to manage the whole of
Europe.
Originally it started as a goodaspiration, but a restoration
of late medieval styles of unityor whatever.
But that's not like this.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, that's also like we talk about
accountability and relationshipto the people.
No accountability there.
No, not even democratic process.
The most undemocraticinstitution you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right and it's really evil because they use a kind of
a liberal idea of the EuropeanCommonwealth, which definitely
existed and say at the end ofthe religious wars in the 16th
and 17th century.
And so they use that and invokethat idea to build a
(10:06):
supernational state.
That's illiberal.
And so Boris Johnson comes topower in the UK and says, well,
okay, I'm going to give youBrexit and take the England,
scotland, wales and Ireland outof the European Union.
And that seemed to be areactionary move.
And so there was an attempt todestroy that movement and,
(10:30):
despite the people's multipletimes voting for Brexit, it's
like these people arereactionaries, they're dangerous
and they were all smeared asracist and all the usual Romides
.
And that happened.
At the same time.
Trump came to power here and therise of Trump in 2016 was, I
(10:50):
think, led to a kind of therewas an existential crisis for
the ruling class and I don'tneed to qualify here that I'm
not a fan of Trump.
I mean I wrote a whole bookagainst it.
I've been railing against theguy since 2015.
I mean I have all people.
I mean I had the first Englishlanguage article explaining that
(11:12):
Trump's ideology if he has oneis fascistic.
But the point is that he wasnot supposed to be president,
that Hillary Clinton wassupposed to be president.
So they looked at the outcomeof that election, said
democracy's broken, the peopleare rotten, everybody's an
interactionist, yeah, and wehave to get rid of democracy.
(11:34):
So one of the strangest thingsabout all this stuff is that you
hear now people in major mediaand the blue state Spokesperson,
pr or whatever, complainingthat Trump is anti-democratic.
That's just projection.
I mean, they've turned againstdemocracy because it generated
(11:56):
the wrong outcomes.
So ever since 2016, we've seenjust this barrage of attacks
against people that arequestioning the ruling class
Joker-style agenda.
And ever since then, we've seenthe rise of DEI and ESG and
(12:16):
then try to stick us all in anelectric vehicle to give us
15-minute cities and then lockus down.
Oh, stay home orders.
You can't go to church for twoChristmases in a row and your
kid can't go to school, andthat's all because of the great
pestilence which is Trump andBoris Johnson, and so this waves
(12:38):
of immigration is just anotherpiece of that.
It's not the exception, it ispart of the agenda.
I have to say, I became my firsttime to become aware of this,
and it's weird because once yousee it.
You can't unsee it.
But my first time to becomeaware of this was when I visited
(13:00):
my mother in Texas in thespring of 2021.
And I expected everybody inTexas to be all upset about the
lockdowns and the schoolclosures and the closing of
malls and businesses andeverything which there's plenty
to be upset about, but Icouldn't get anybody to talk
about that.
All they wanted to talk aboutwas the disastrous state of
(13:24):
civilization by virtue of theimmigration.
Well, I was shocked by thisbecause I hadn't really thought
of it that way and I didn'tthink of my mother and her
friends and everything as kindof like.
These are people I hadpreviously put in a box of
status fascists, you know.
And yet here I'm hearing normalpeople in a genuine heartfelt
(13:49):
meltdown over something themedia was not reporting on at
all, and I remember thinking atthe time I need to figure this
out Like it's not enough just tothrow out my you know, hit him
on the head with a book.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, I need to figure this out.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And so here we are three years later and I finally
have just said okay, I'm justnot going to go along with this.
This is stateism.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
When you talk with your mother and other people in
Texas.
For the people living there,what's the big deal?
Why are they upset?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well, part of the problem is that the perception
that they're losing control overthe rules under which they live
.
You know that their vote isbeing taken away from them and
you know what's interestingabout this, brittany, is that
(14:49):
it's technically illegal forundocumented migrants to vote in
federal elections or stateelections.
But it's a question of theverification.
What is the method by whichyou're verifying people's
(15:13):
identities and their rights toassist in the creation of laws
under which we live?
And those vary widely fromstate to state.
And there's no question thatthe dominant goal and this has
been, I feel like such an agefor not saying this it's been
going on for years that the goalof these, of the blue staters
(15:36):
and sort of ruling class voguestares in general, is to water
these rules down ever more.
I mean, texas passed a lawthrough the legislature that
said look, if you're going tovote, you've got to be able to
provide identity.
Well, there was total hysteria.
I mean like everybody'sscreaming no, this is right,
this is evil.
And it's like wait, what?
(15:56):
I mean?
I can't even buy a pack ofcigarettes in the convenience
store without showing myidentity card.
What is wrong with you people?
It never made any sense.
The goal is to water it down tothe point that they can
manipulate the outcome.
So, for example, in Arizona Imean, elon Musk has been all
over this the standard has beenthat you can vote in federal
(16:18):
elections.
You can't vote in stateelections without showing
verification.
You can't vote in federalelections.
If you check the box that saysyou're a US citizen on an
absentee ballot, that's what itreally requires, just check the
box.
So now you've got anywherebetween 10 and 20 million people
(16:38):
we have no idea how many havecome over the last four years
that are in a position.
They don't even have to do itthemselves.
You see, I mean you can getelection workers and
non-government organizations andthese activists, groups and
everything else just to do itfor them, just to lean in.
And next thing, you know you'reflooding red states with blue
(17:01):
state ballots, unbeknownst tothe migrants.
But then you count them up andgo well, there's not many people
here, there's this many ballotsthat make sense.
And then it's at the point, ifyou call voter fraud, that
everybody says oh, that'sdisinformation.
And now the media's comingafter you, and so on.
(17:21):
So I mean this is real and Iguess my point is under pure
libertarian theory.
We favor a free movement ofpeople, of course, but part of
that has to involve certainrules, and one of the rules is
that you can't I can't move toJapan, for example, and get on
(17:45):
welfare and bring all my friendsin and affect the outcome of
elections.
So that I mean and if you didthat you would seriously anger
the population, say the least.
Right, I mean, there would be amass movement to elect an
authoritarian leader to get ridof me and my friends, and
(18:05):
there's no world in which thatmakes any sense.
But that's precisely what'sgoing on here, and let me just
back up slightly.
I know I'm talking too much.
If you just want to cut me off.
You can cut me off, but.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Oh no, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
FA Hayek's credentials as a good liberal
are in question Good libertarianliberal.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But in I'd argue with that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
But well, well, when it comes to certain aspects of
the comments, that's true.
I mean it was one bad chapterin red surf to buy, but just in
general.
I mean he's you know, and in1974, he wrote a letter to the
London Times over a question ofmigration, and in this case it
(18:56):
was concerned Muslim migration,which is really growing in the
UK.
And he said he said somethinginteresting.
He said there is a danger whenthere's too much migration
coming in that is of a differentsort than that doesn't mix well
(19:23):
with a history, religion andlanguage of the host territory.
And that he says I don't likethis, but it does whip people up
into anger and it pushes a lotof buttons on the part of the
people, and this can lead todisaster, it can lead to
(19:44):
authoritarian outcomes.
So, in the name of preservingliberty, I would strongly
suggest that the UK grow aboutthis as rationally as possible,
for fear of repeating disastersfrom the past.
And the disaster that was inhis mind in particular was the
interwar period in Germany,where he believed that the type
(20:09):
of migration that went on duringthe Weimar period was seemingly
meritorious and virtuous andcreating sanctuaries for all
these people ultimately ended upin triggering the population
and scapegoating immigrants foreverything bad, unfairly
(20:31):
everything that bad washappening in the country.
That of course, led to thecalamities that we know about.
So that was Hayek's view.
So reading that kind of struckme.
That's interesting, becauseyou're not arguing for barriers
that are there At the border.
(20:54):
What you're doing isforecasting very likely
political outcomes based on yourread of history, and that's a
very different kind of project.
Rothbard observed the same thingafter 1989 when the Soviet
(21:15):
Union fell apart.
He took no sense.
There's various, too, toobserve and, by the way, I don't
need to tell you I dismissedall this at the time.
I thought, oh, rothbard'sselling out, rothbard's doing
the same crazy thing.
But what he actually observedwas that, sporadically over the
previous 50 years prior to thewhole Soviet experiment falling
(21:38):
apart, that Moscow had engagedin a systematic attempt to
permanently colonize, with itsresidents, with Russians proper,
all of the territories that itconquered as a way of securing a
permanent political control.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
China did the same thing.
China did the same thing inminority areas in Tibet.
So one big issue for me isputting this in the context of
libertarianism, a desire forfree societies.
Is we talk about what's goingon right now as an immigration
(22:18):
issue?
To me, it's much more thanwhat's happening at the border
right now is not immigration.
I mean, I've been an immigrant.
I've gone to other countries tolive and work and never has
someone been waiting there forme with a bus ticket or a plane
ticket or hotel.
(22:39):
Here's your hotel room.
We're going to put you up andtell you how to vote and all
this stuff.
So, as you say, there's a lotmore going on.
This is not just open borders.
This is not just freeimmigration.
This is a whole project ofbringing people in, subsidizing
them.
We're paying for this, Ataxpayer expense subsidizing
(23:00):
these people to come in and dowhat impacts demographics, voter
voting outcomes, that kind ofthing.
But I don't think it's fair tosay that it's just immigration,
that it's just open borders.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I agree with that, and this is part of the
complication we have.
The US right now has, inreality, the most restrictive
immigration policy we've had in100 years.
If you're Norwegian, swedish,german or Taiwanese or English
(23:40):
or Australian, there's almost noway you can get residency in
this country.
I mean, you can get temporaryvisas, but then they're going to
kick you out and even thenthey're making you get COVID
shots, which even to apply forresidency.
So it's extremely hard to getan H1B visa, get E3s, to get
(24:06):
green cards.
It's very, very, very difficult.
Quotas are very tight.
Trump lowered all these things,and so immigration to this
country has been never moredifficult.
At the same time, you've gotfederal agents going into Texas
and actively and coercivelypreventing Texas border guards
(24:29):
from securing the border againstactual having the country
sacked.
I mean, it's unbelievable andyou can go back in history and
this is what it means for, like,if you look up, what does it
mean for a country to be sacked?
This is it.
So this is not the carrying out.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
They're not coming in and attacking people's homes
and vandalizing and pillagingand all that.
That's not happening.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Well in New York they're living in the finest
hotels and also many authoritiesin the city of New York have
pleaded with residents to openup their homes and also school.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's where New Yorkers are going to say no, I
know New Yorkers.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Public, but schools have been canceled in many parts
of the country.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
For that.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So that the migrants can be housed in the public
schools.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So yeah, it's going away.
It's like sacking, but with theactive cooperation of the
federal government?
Yeah, yeah, that's, and I thinkyou're right.
Getting back to the Jokeranalogy, I think it's it's hard
for people to recognize whentheir own government is at war
with them.
And you know, for those of uswho kind of recognize the nature
(25:55):
of the state and that what itdoes, what it does, is kind of
always at war with us, becauseit's always at odds with what
free people would be doing, youknow, without that coercion.
But this is like a reallydramatic example of that.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Very intense and dramatic example.
It's so dramatic that I'm Ishould stop doing my mayor
copers, but I'm deeplyembarrassed that I went
basically a long time withoutwithout seeing it.
Ironically, I think one of theproblems that libertarians have
is that they underestimate theevil of the government.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yeah, look at how they responded to COVID
Absolutely, absolutelyunderestimate it's all.
You know.
They're they're, you know it's,it's inefficient, you know
they're doing things just alittle bit not quite right.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
They need my advice, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, they don't.
They don't see the, themagnitude of that evil.
It's, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Let me address something, since you're so
indulgent and we're focused onthis arcane areas that
libertarianism.
But my friend Alex NorastaNorasta, norasta at Kato, wrote
a big piece the other day on thesubject, which generally sided
(27:17):
with the Biden administration,and I'm not over the mindset
that just dismisses argumentsout of hand because they come to
the wrong conclusions.
I like to dig throughintelligent argument and see if
it's right or wrong.
So I read this piece verycarefully and he makes two
(27:40):
really important claims.
The first one and I would liketo take these one at a time the
first one is that the reason forthe increase in illegalization
is illegal immigration, is theshutdown of legal paths.
Okay, my thought about that isthat there's a grain of truth to
(28:02):
that and it goes back to theborder response after 9-11.
So I grew up in a in a bordercity in Texas, in El Paso, and
it was very, you know.
There was a constant stream ofpeople from Mexico coming in
doing day jobs and then goingback at night and it was very
cooperative.
We didn't have walls, nobodycared about this stuff.
(28:24):
It was just, you know, high,just walk through the border,
that's it.
You know, it was no big dealand everything was fine.
There's nothing wrong.
But after 9-11, suddenly wecracked down on the border, so
it made that impossible, madethat sort of day work impossible
.
And so now you, you create anincentive to break the law, to
get a come across and stay.
(28:45):
Yeah, okay, if you don't haveopen borders then you have every
.
That means it's ironic, butclosed borders actually
incentivize people to break thelaw.
So there's, there's an elementof truth there.
I don't know how we go back.
I mean, why is there such apush to build a wall?
We've, we've lived on theborder of Mexico, for, you know,
since 1834 or whatever it isand whenever Texas declared
(29:10):
independence, and never had awall.
Well, why is this going on?
Well, I think it all traces tothe response of 9-11.
We stopped allowing day workersand work permits and free flow
of people back and forth inprinted relations and suddenly
treated everybody on the otherside of the borders and enemies.
So, so, so, so.
(29:30):
For 25 years has been going onthat people, just you know, find
every means to get across andlet's get across.
They're like, oh, thank God,I'm home, free, and then they
stay.
So that's new.
So some extent Alex's point hasa point there, and he's also
right that there are legalimmigration has never been more
difficult.
Okay, so I'll concede that.
(29:53):
But what that as an explanationmisses is the sheer scale.
I mean, that's the.
Nowhere is coming to terms withthe sheer scale, and I'm not
talking about as a percentage ofthe population.
That's one way that people sayisn't that unusual?
Because look back at 1890, youknow, you look at the total
(30:14):
population relative to theimmigrant population.
We're much lower now than wewere.
It's all ridiculous.
We've never had 20 millionpeople come across the border
undocumented in the span ofthree years.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I mean, this is just.
Is that a legitimate number?
Is it 20 million?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It depends on how you believe.
I mean, like nobody knows forsure, but it's certainly between
10 and 20.
Or it could be as high as 22.
Those are high.
22 is high number, but five isa excessively low number.
So nobody knows the actualnumbers.
But this we've never seenanything like this.
I don't think Alex's point.
I think there's a lot ofvalidity to his argument and the
(30:53):
abstract but it doesn't addressthe reality on the ground.
Now, the second thing he claimsis that everybody who's coming
here is coming here to work.
Doesn't seem to be the case.
I don't know.
I mean that this painting witha very broad, broad brush, I
think everybody could be put towork, but the problem is we have
extremely strict rules onemploying these people.
(31:15):
So, you know, the same thinghappened in France and Germany,
you know, after the Iraq war,when they faced this gigantic
migrant crisis, they hadmigrants all over the place, but
none of them were allowed towork because of the union rules.
So you're bringing in these, asthey say, fighting age males,
(31:36):
billions, and not giving themwork opportunities.
So, even if they wanted to work, they can't work, yeah, except
under the table.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah.
So it's a whole different thingfrom the kind of the
immigration that you know, thatsort of built this country,
built the current population,that was, people coming in
having to make their own way.
This whole thing of justimporting a bunch of people and
either, you know, in the case ofEurope, not allowing them to
work or subsidizing them so theydon't have to, that's a
(32:06):
different thing, you know.
You could still argue, I guess,that that's a good thing, but
it's not the same thing as justnormal immigration.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It's a very different animal and people have an
existential fear of it andthat's why it's the number one
issue in the country, becausethey believe and I think rightly
so this is going to permanentlychange the character of the
country.
It's going to permanentlyentrench a blue majority and, by
the way, one of the reasonsthis has become such a priority
for the Biden administration inparticular is that after COVID
(32:37):
lockdowns, there's mass wave ofexodus from blue states to red,
which is giving red states newseats in Congress when the next
census is taken and all thereallocations of political power
go around.
So we've got a huge shift fromblue to red in this country.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I'm one of those people.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.
So how are you going to counterthat?
I mean, what's your plan to dowith gigantic population shifts
away from status policiestowards freedom policies?
If you want to preserve statism, you got to get new people in
to counter that and to flood thered zone as much as possible,
and that is precisely what'shappening.
(33:19):
So this is the other policiesof Texas and Florida to take the
migrants and put them on busesand planes and send them to
Martha's Vineyard in New Yorkand Chicago is an attempt to
foil that, and it's beeninterestingly successful in some
(33:41):
ways, because that, I mean, I'msorry, libertarians are totally
behind on all this stuff.
This war is taking placebecause Texas knows exactly what
the Biden administration is upto and Florida knows exactly
what the Biden administration isup to, so they're attempting to
there are other people involvedin busing migrants too.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I mean there's like.
Ngos and folks, and I don'treally understand.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Well, they're taking them to red zones, right?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, yeah, who's taking them to New York?
Who's Is that?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's Texas and Florida sending them on buses to
, because they're definitelytrying to keep them out and with
weird rules, like no buses canWith undocumented immigrants can
come here between this hour andthat hour.
It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
But then who's paying the hotel bills for those
people?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
The taxis yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
But I mean, through what Like is it the city of New
York saying, okay, they're herenow?
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So they're putting them up in Nice hotels, very
nice hotels.
So, and you know, I have to sayyou know, my views on this have
been building for a while andit's like I'm a little stupid,
but one thing that is hard forme to ignore are facts.
(35:07):
Okay, so Manhattan today isnothing like what it was 10
years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm hearing that yeah .
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
We go to midtown.
First of all, it's extremelydangerous, especially at night.
There's just zombies fallingover the streets and the whole
thing is like a dystopian movie,because once you get to the
Central Park area and above, youget to the Upper East Side and
(35:36):
Upper West Side and that kind ofthing, you can do safety there.
But if you have to make yourway out of those areas through
to midtown to take a trip orsomething like that, it's just
like going through the jungle.
People are increasinglyterrified.
So New York is to be a city ofunrelenting mobility within
(36:00):
Manhattan.
Yeah, it's no longer, as Peopleare terrified, wow.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
They're communities, that's.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Okay.
So I think we're bothanti-state, we're both against
the institution of the state.
What do you think, what do youimagine that immigration would
look like in a world without astate?
Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So, yeah, this gets into a complicated area because
I mean, are we saying thatthere's without a state anywhere
?
But does that mean withoutnations?
I mean, would the nationdisappear without the state?
And that's a big question.
(36:54):
Meas is himself addressed it inhis 1919 book Nation, state and
Economy.
He makes a distinction betweenthe nation and the state and he
theorizes that there is such athing as a nation because
there's a perception that thereare features of life that are
(37:17):
common to people.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Okay, so so culturally based.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, there's certain comments in any society that
are unavoidable.
You can't like, even in aprivate subdivision there's
comments, right?
I mean there's sidewalks,there's streets, even if they're
private.
There's the air you breathe,there's your neighbor across
street.
There are certain things wehave in common and the purpose
(37:44):
of nationhood is to somehowregulate those comments, to come
to some kind of consensus abouthow we want to live.
I mean, can I defecate in abucket and throw it out my
window on the ground, and whatimpact does that have on the
health of other people?
I mean, these questionslibertarians don't like to talk
about them, but I mean, justlike in the real world, things
(38:07):
like how we're going to manageour, our common lives really
does matter.
So the idea of a nation hasmany pieces, and they involve
religion, they involve, yes,race, they involve language,
(38:29):
they involve shared histories,shared dynasties, a shared sense
of people-ness, which can beindependent of race and language
.
Okay, it can be independent ofreligion.
These are all I mean.
I think Rana or the Frenchtheorists identified five
(38:51):
possible things that constitutenationhood.
So you're likely you can getrid of one or two or even three.
You're not going to get rid ofall five.
And if you do get rid of allfive, then your sense of
nationhood disappears.
Nationhood is just a realityfor all of recorded human
(39:13):
history.
That sense of rules to regulateour comments, and with that
comes a sense of who we are andwho we're going to include, and
whether that's done throughprivate means or state means, I
just don't know.
Now we have states now.
(39:34):
So the question is, am Isuggesting to the state what it
should do?
And not really, because I don'treally know the answers to that
and we've had long debates inAmerican history about this and
we've had at the originalconstitution the states
themselves would regulate whowas admitted to citizenship.
(39:56):
It's a reasonable solution.
I think States are organicpolitical communities.
By the way, mises's view ofnationhood is that it's all
comes down to language primarily.
I think it's a little distortedbut it's pretty interesting.
But the American idea was todecentralize the decision as low
as possible, that that was thebest possible solution.
(40:17):
Well, that went away.
And then we got birthrightcitizenship much, much later.
And then, which was designed toright the wrong of the
tremendous evil of slavery,right, I mean that was just the
(40:38):
great evil of the Americanexperiment.
I mean everything was justbeautiful about the American
founding.
And then there's this onehorrible thing, yeah, and it had
such an impact on what followed.
I mean it's just terrifying theextent to which so much of
(41:00):
American politics, from thefounding all the way through the
Civil War and after and evennow, revolves around that one
great evil.
I mean it's unbelievable whenyou think about just how could
such a beautiful experiment beso wrecked.
But anyway, and after the greatimmigration of the 1880s and
(41:20):
1890s which was not withoutproblems, by the way, it wasn't
just like oh, this is glorious,ireland and Italy and the world
comes here and everything'swonderful no, that gave birth to
exactly what Hayek predicted, akind of reaction and movement.
And when Darwin's book calledthe Descentive man came out and
(41:48):
he was an earnest thinker and soon, but this book was calamity,
because the book said thathuman beings have to curate
themselves to avoid devolution.
We need to evolve constantly,which means we need to regulate
our breeding patterns.
And so that set off a wave ofpanic that led eventually to
(42:12):
eugenics, to racialists thinking.
The entire American upper classwas converted to extremist,
cranky, race-based theoriesabout the future of civilization
.
So that was one of the costs ofthat wave of immigration is
that it set that in motion.
By 1923, we had the impositionof the laws Calvin Kuhler signed
(42:33):
it.
That was very strange and verystrict about immigration that
basically favored Anglo-Saxonsand deprecated Slavs, southern
Italians and Jews in particular.
Okay, so that was 1923.
And, yeah, it was quitecatastrophic.
(42:57):
That law was quite catastrophicand bound to create a reaction.
So when Jews started fleeingduring the Great Diaspora,
german-occupied territories totry to find safety, they
couldn't find it in Americabecause of US immigration law,
(43:19):
because in those days Jewsweren't white people, they were
considered asiatic and foreignand poisonous by the American
ruling class.
Okay, so after World War II,then there was a reaction to
that.
And then we got the 1965immigration bill which picked up
the same racial themes, exceptreverse them in the other
(43:41):
direction, which is crazy.
That's just as bad as 1965.
It was just bad as 1923.
It's just that it was theopposite policy which gave rise
to a new reactionary movement.
What are you doing to ourcountry, gradually, over time?
So I think both theseapproaches are wrong.
(44:02):
I mean, look again, I'm notadvising the state and I don't
think the state is open to goodadvice anyway.
But if you had, let's say, aresponsible leadership of a
nation.
It would seek to bring peoplein who were seeking to work,
(44:25):
that were not criminals, thatevery intuition says we're going
to contribute to the nationalwell-being and not annoy
residents to the point that theypursue reactionary movements
and things like this.
You would build a nation basedon what is good for the peace
(44:46):
and prosperity and domestictranquility of all.
That's what you would do, notwith some weird agenda to get
rid of the slobs, get rid of theJews or down with white people.
We have way too many of them.
You can't use the immigrationsystem for demographic curation
(45:10):
of the population.
There should be a goal to bringpeople here who can acculturate
and make a contribution to thewell-being of all.
I mean that seems to be theanswer.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
It seems to me, though, that, knowing everything
I know about the state and howit operates, it seems to me that
there's a fundamental problemwith incentives, that any state
entity, any monopoly on force,has incentives that are not
(45:47):
aligned with the people livingunder it and not aligned with,
if you want to call it, thegreater good or the community.
They're just not aligned.
They don't have the sameincentives.
When I look at, how would youhave a nation state that does
this?
Well, it's hard to imagine thatnot becoming something like
(46:15):
what we're seeing now, wherethose powers are used to gain
power for itself and ultimatelyharm the people living.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I agree with that, but the thing is that there are
various places around the worldand experiences where this seems
to have been handled, leasttemporarily, pretty well Japan,
south Korea, sweden.
But Sweden gave in At somepoint.
They were just intimidated byall the propaganda and
(46:49):
everything and opened up thefloodgates.
By the way, I can't believethis is me talking.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
That's another thing I wanted to just bring up is the
one thing Again, I'm completelyanti-state.
Yet the one thing that gives mepause is my experience in Japan
.
I lived there for two years.
What you're saying isabsolutely right.
It's one of the places in theworld where the government
(47:18):
actually does corrupt it in someways in that country, of course
.
All governments are corrupt, butas far as the kind of
immigration policy you'retalking about, they do seem to
have done that.
What I think is really hard forprobably, I'm going to say, any
(47:39):
American who hasn't livedoverseas what it's really hard
to appreciate is the depth andthe value of what's preserved
there.
Japanese culture is cohesive ina way that no subculture in
America is.
It kind of defies description.
(48:02):
But it's like you're in thisplace and after you get to know
it and you understand how thingswork, you realize that you're
surrounded by people who allshare the same values and who
you leave your camera on a benchin this.
Some way Someone's going tomake a real effort to bring that
(48:24):
back to you.
There are just certain thingsthat you can predict that will
happen Again.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I'm basically that's what I said the regulation of
the commons.
That's what I'm referring to.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Right, but we haven't had that in this country.
We have a much watered-downversion of what that is.
I think if you haven'texperienced how amazing it can
be to live in a society thatfunctions well and where the
commons are respected byeveryone, where everyone kind of
respects the common space andrespects each other, if you
(49:05):
don't know that, then you don'tknow what you've lost.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Japan's a unique situation, or maybe it's not
unique, it's just.
Oh, by the way, let's just looka little further into this
because, again, there's afundamentalist idea within our
world to always come up with aclear answer to everything.
Let's just explore the questionShould political communities
(49:38):
aspire to be homogeneous orheterogeneous?
Okay, that's kind of aninteresting question, and I
think the answer is that it alldepends on the organic
development of the community.
So in the Middle East and theMediterranean, mixed populations
have been part of theexperience of the region, and
(49:59):
that's been true for thousandsof years, and nobody can imagine
it otherwise than everybody isdelighted by it.
So people speak three languagesJudaism, islam and Christianity
have coexisted, not withoutproblems, but largely coexisted,
for thousands of years, manythousands of years actually.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
And problems are mostly exacerbated when the
state steps in and tries toforce.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, when one group seeks to become dominant, then
it becomes a problem, anddominant and illiberal, yeah,
and that's what has happenedvariously throughout history.
But heterogeneity is just part,and Americans are used to
heterogeneity too.
When the original settlers cameover here, they attempted to
(50:47):
divide themselves up into tribes, right.
So Rhode Island was, orMaryland was weirdly Catholic,
virginia was Anglican, and theywere very trying to curate the
popular, their politicalcommunities based on religion,
and then that devolved intoslave owning versus not slave
(51:10):
owning, which is unbelievablywicked.
But eventually, over time,there grew to be a very
comfortable heterogeneity, andyou've lived in New York.
You know what that feels like,and most people are fine with
that.
I mean, it seems to work for us.
But there are other politicalcommunities that have always
been traditionally homogeneous,and that is the essence of what
(51:32):
it means for them to live andexperience the world that they
do.
So every American is fromsomewhere, and if you ask
anybody in Japan where you'refrom, they will tell you they're
from Japan.
It's very simple they're fromJapan.
Now, americans can't imaginethat, right?
No, where are your ancestorsfrom Japan, right?
(51:56):
I mean, that's it.
That's the fun.
Americans can't even imaginethat.
So every experience isdifferent and I think we need to
kind of recognize that, thatthere needs to be some sense of
deference to the prevailingorganic experiences of the
people and how they've come todevelop a social order that is
(52:18):
peaceful, leads to tranquilityand portas artist's blessings on
the most possible people at anyone time.
And what that looks likeexactly you cannot say a priori.
You really do have to look atthe history and the specifics of
the circumstances of time andplace of a particular area.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, I mean, I don't have an answer either,
especially given my experiencein Japan.
I can't.
I don't have an answer, but I'mpretty sure it has something to
do with incentives and thatthings get worse to the extent
that you have an entity that isbased on force and that is not
(53:00):
really accountable to anyone,the more that has an influence
in society.
I just think, whether it'simmigration or anything else, I
think things are going to beworse and, as we're seeing right
now, immigration policy isbeing weaponized to attack us.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
That's right.
And anytime you impose aexogenously imposed
rationalistic construct ofdemographic ideals on a country
where it's not part of itsexperiences and history, you're
engaged in a kind of an act ofviolence.
So, for example, let's just sayI dreamed up the idea that
(53:42):
there's no way America is goingto survive without being ruled
by a Spanish monarch.
Okay, and I somehow get controlof the system of government and
make King Maximilian the secondof the monarch of America.
Now, how sustainable is that?
How long is that going to last?
(54:03):
Is that actually going to begood for the country?
There's no conditions underwhich that is a good idea.
Reimposing the monarchy inBrazil might actually have some
plausible effect.
In a way, the monarchy fromEngland would be itself a kind
of an act of violence too,unless it was done.
No, at this point I thinkyou're kind of sick of it.
(54:24):
Maybe there's no good monarch.
Actually there's one goodmonarch.
If they took away the monarchyof Lichtenstein, that would be
an act of violence.
So there needs to be somedeference.
And if you're, imposingheterogeneity of politically
(54:45):
participating citizens in Japanwould be a malicious act that
would finally disrupt society.
But imposing political equalityof access in a homogeneous
population in America woulditself be an act of violence.
So there has to be a way inwhich the immigration system is
(55:12):
deferential to the ways that apolitical community has learned
to organize itself, given itshistory and understanding of who
they are.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, I also feel like America has this unique
problem of it's just too big.
I don't think it's legitimateto try and make a country of 350
million people to try andpretend that that's one culture
or that's one, even one if youwant to call it a nation, isn't
it?
Speaker 2 (55:41):
crazy and we've been doing this for 200 years,
basically Like when I don't knowwhat year the US made Hawaii a
state yeah, I do that 40s orsomething like that but suddenly
all Americans were being taughtcertain Hawaiian words, like
aloha, and learning hula dancesand stuff like that.
(56:03):
So we have this funny way ofincorporating our empire,
rolling our empire back into theit's silly, it's silly.
It's silly.
Yeah, the 13 colonies, maybemutual defense cooperative, but
the way the American empire hasgrown, it's shocking and God
(56:29):
knows it's probably unviable.
I mean, there's something inall of us that wants her to be a
union, an American union.
I remember when RFK was askedwhen he was in New Hampshire at
Porfest, where oh, yes, carlaasked him about.
Yeah, oh, you were there yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
I heard about it.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, and you go to a Libertarian meeting, you better
prepare yourself becausesomething crazy is going to
happen.
And so Carla said would you beokay if New Hampshire succeeded?
And I had introduced him andI'm aware of who Libertarians
are and how kind of delightfullyinsane they are.
But I was mortified.
(57:13):
I was like Jesus Christ, Aren'tthere other responsible
questions you could ask?
But still it elicited an answerwhich is basically nostalgic
and romantic.
It's like you know, I'm nothere to break up the union, I'm
here to bring us together as arestore, the old American people
.
And a very lovely answer insome ways.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
It's lovely, I just don't think it's realistic.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Whether it can happen or not is another matter.
Yeah, what bothers me about theRFK candidacy in general?
This is an aside.
I think it's basically based onnostalgia and his nine is not
(57:56):
functionally policy oriented.
So, like anytime he has aspecific policy, it's not quite
right and there's simply wrongwith it, but his aspirations and
his dreams are glorious.
But you know, I mean, that'swhat we learn from the time.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
He wants to go after the pharma industrial complex by
reforming it.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
He wants to unplug the private interests from
government agencies.
I mean, I'm against corporatismtoo, but I tell you, one way to
get something even worse thancorporatism is to fully
eliminate all the corruption andleaving only abstract
power-wielding, insanely stupid,disconnected bureaucrats with
(58:43):
total power over the population,with no check on them from
private industry at all.
Actually, the only thing worsethan a corrupt FDA that's
captured by big pharma is?
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Is it an independent one?
Yeah, I mean, let's just getrid of those agencies, let's
just yeah, it could be worse.
Yeah, it could be worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
That's a terrible, I mean, and a great coalition.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
I'm not that far from it.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
I mean, no, I'm in a great coalition with a lot of
anti-corporatists, as you couldimagine in my post lockdown
iteration.
But yeah, this is this visionof like how to fix the problem
is something Beyond the paradigmthat we're in.
Speaker 1 (59:37):
I mean, to me the paradigm is the problem.
It's this paradigm of statecontrol and coercion.
If you can't see beyond that,you're never going to get out of
it.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Yeah, and one reason I'm appreciative of some of the
positions who are thenon-libertarians who are
critiquing corporatism right nowis they've taught me something
I was really a little unaware of, which was the extent to which.
So, as libertarians, I alwaysthink the state is the great
evil, but creating thesebinaries between public and
private, and then demonizing oneand valorizing the other, can
(01:00:10):
get you only so far when youbegin to notice conditions under
which the state itself is beingmanipulated, primarily by
private interests, and so thatplays with the libertarian mind.
We don't know what to do withthat, but you see that in the
case of pharmaceuticalregulation and, for that matter,
(01:00:31):
military and you trust, yeah,military imperialism, I mean,
these are all being pushed bywealthy, powerful ruling class
elites, whether they're ingovernment or private industry
or nonprofit foundations.
The evil is present in all ofthem.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yeah, there's all kinds of people who profit from
coercion, and I think in thesort of on the left, there's
this tendency to think thatlibertarian means you're
defending the corporate entitiesor you're defending those
people, and I think somelibertarians fall into that trap
too.
But that's not it.
It's a system.
It's a system that we'redefending, and the corporate
(01:01:15):
state system benefits a lot ofpeople who aren't in the state,
because they know how to use thestate to get their goodies.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, they're driving the policy forward.
I mean, that's actually one ofthe weirdest things I've
discovered.
You know that the techcompanies themselves that aspire
to have the state censordisinformation, and why?
Because they want to destroythe competition.
So if you can smear all yourcompetition as spreading
(01:01:45):
disinformation to use statepower to go after them, you'll
do it.
So it's not the case that poorinnocent Facebook was having to
obey the demands of the CDC.
That's not it at all.
Facebook is begging the CDC tocrush my competition.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
So the board has been calling for speech controls for
even before COVID, I think,yeah, we've been calling for
that yeah, and the media's gotthis desperate desire to survive
right now, so they'll use, doanything.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
It's not going to work, but they're doing anything
possible to get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
I need to read you this one quote.
You'll laugh at this and then Iwill let you go.
But I don't know if you saw theCNN report on what's going on
with that Texas at the beginning.
Basically, they're calling it,they're framing it, as the Texas
takeover now.
So here's the CNN headline theseized part of the US-Mexico
(01:02:44):
border and blocked federalBorder Patrol agents and the
whole.
It's a little video clip andthe whole message is the reason
Border Patrol can't get in thereto do their job is because the
Texas authorities have takenover.
That's how they're.
I just thought you'd get a kickout of that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Oh, it's even worse than that.
I mean, the newest line is thatthe US government is trying to
stop Texas from permittingchildren to drown.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Right, I saw that too .
Yeah, they just wanted to getin there and protect them.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Yeah, protect.
Look, there's three drownings.
Three kids drowned.
For God's sake, texas, what iswrong with you letting kids
drown?
You know the federalgovernment's here to save these
poor people from drowning, sothis is just deep state
propaganda.
But mostly they're not coveringit.
And we're now 10 days into thedepths of the crisis and there
(01:03:40):
is a dearth of reporting on thisat all from New York Times and
the Wall Street Journal, andvarious messages are being
tested at alternative venueslike Vox and White, and the
message testing is the savingkids from drowning kind of stuff
that Texas has kicked out theBorder Patrol that's trying to.
Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Trying to save the kids?
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yeah, and they're trying to see how stupidly
orange yeah, and so this is theway the censorship, industrial
media, captured media, complexworks is.
They're waiting to figure out,because this is a problem,
because 100% of the Americanpeople are on the side of Texas
at this point.
It's just ridiculous.
So how do you message that youknow if you're going to use your
(01:04:31):
captured media to defend theBiden position?
Well, first you have to try outmessaging.
And your other kept places weknow what those are now.
They're Rolling Stone and Wiredand Vox and so on.
These are basically Sorry toput it this way, but they're
(01:04:55):
basically CIA operations at thispoint.
So they try out variousmessaging and once it settles
down, they can figure outsomething that's compelling, and
then the New York Times willput it above the fold.
Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Right After it's presented.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, and then NPR will be all over it, and so on.
So yeah, once you get thedecoder, ring everything makes
sense.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
This has been great yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
And I want to thank you for your open-mindedness and
your and just so anybody who'slistening understands who you
are you're highly sophisticated,great-learning, a lifetime of
reading and reflection onfundamental issues concerning
human rights, liberties andsocial organization.
You are not unsophisticatedperson in this realm and I
(01:05:42):
appreciate your subtlety ofthought, your willingness to
grapple sort of truthfully withempirical reality and come to
terms with what that means foryour life aspiration, which is
to live freely and incooperation with everybody else
too.
So having me on being willingto have a completely honest
(01:06:05):
discussion, I think says a lotabout you, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Oh, thank you.
I mean, I think it's important,you know, and it can be tough
sometimes, like if you'rewriting about things, it can be
tough to take on an issue whenyou don't have an answer and
I'll check.
Yeah, I don't have an answer.
I don't.
I understand.
Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Well, let's both keep Stay critically-minded, keep
thinking and doing what we canto make the world a better place
.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Awesome, thank you.
You've been listening to what,then Must we Do?
The podcast.
For those who understand thatthe state is the problem and are
seeking solutions For moreepisodes, go to
bretneysubstackcom.
I G N E dot substack dot comand subscribe.
Welcome to the podcast.
That's all about solutions.
If you're tired of complainingabout tyranny and you want to
take action to create a freerworld, this is the place for you
.
Join us as we ask what then,must we do?
All right, I am here todayagain with Jeffrey Tucker.
(00:27):
Jeffrey is the president of theBrownstone Institute.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for being here.
I asked you to come on the showtoday to talk about immigration
.
I know you've been, like me, along-time libertarian, advocate
of individual rights, enemy ofthe state, all that.
(00:50):
You've recently had a change ofheart with regard to
immigration.
Can you tell me a little bitabout that?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Sure, I think this time last year I was on John
Stelzel's show on NationalTelevision, on Fox, passionately
arguing for open borders.
In fact, I think I've been foropen borders since I was in
college.
My friend was running for theTexas State Legislature and he
was libertarian.
He came to me he said I can'tpossibly support open borders, I
(01:21):
would simply never get elected.
I said well, that means you'rejust selling out your principles
for power and that's evil in mymind.
So we actually had a breakup ofour friendship over the issue.
Just to be clear, and also I'vewritten about the issue for a
very long time it seemed to methat the closed borders was
connected to protectionism,which was in turn related to
(01:43):
xenophobia and racialistpolicies and the aspiration of
the homogeneous state, which isa demographically, religiously,
linguistically homogeneous state, which is a liberal, and so on.
So I had it all worked out inmy mind.
I had it all figured out untilrecently.
(02:04):
And then at some point how doesit work?
I think facts just sort ofslammed down in your head to the
point that you just can't.
You can't dig your way out ofit, and this wave of migration
that we've seen over the lastfive years, and I'm not prepared
(02:26):
yet to go back in time andunderstand how long I was wrong,
but it's clear that over thelast five years, what's happened
is the immigration system isbeing used to manipulate
political outcomes, and that isan extremely wicked way to use
demographics against the people,and that is exactly what's
(02:53):
going on.
So, in other words, this isanother way that the state is
attacking us.
In the same way, they tax us,inflate the money supply,
regulate our businesses, give usstay home orders or whatever,
they're also doing this as a wayof destabilizing democracy and
(03:14):
pillaging the public purse anddemoralizing us in the process
and dispossessing citizens ofthe country, the alleged owners
of this system.
I mean just by way of review.
I mean, the idea of governmentand a free society is that the
(03:37):
citizens control.
There's some relationship therebetween the government and the
people, that citizens have someimpact on the laws under which
they live.
I mean that's sort of the idea.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Do you actually believe that, though?
I mean, do you really thinkthat's how it operates?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
No, it's not how it operates, but that's the ideal I
mean that was.
The ideal is that it washatched out during the
Enlightenment, and I stillbelieve.
I mean in some broad sense thatthere's no government that
could possibly be legitimate, nosystem of managing the commons
let's get away from the termgovernment the system of
managing the commons couldpossibly be legitimate unless it
(04:14):
has the consent of the governed.
I mean, so there has to be somerelationship there.
This, I think, is what theDeclaration of Independence says
, and I believe in that.
But when the government turnsagainst the people, it has
myriad ways of doing it, and Idid not understand that
manipulating demographics inthis sort of shocking ways could
(04:39):
be a part of that.
But that's exactly what's goingon and it's very cynical and
once I saw it I couldn't unseeit.
Basically, it's that if thegovernment can identify a
population of people that theycan cause to migrate and
(05:00):
manipulate those people forpurposes of doing out of public
benefits or for electionoutcomes, they might use those
people as fodder in a politicalwar against the people.
And now one response to that isoh, that's ridiculous.
You can't possibly say thatevery Syrian, algerian,
(05:23):
zimbabwean, you know, venezuelanwho pours across the border
illegally is going to be a Bidensupporter, and that's true.
I cannot say that.
But these people are veryclever and they're dealing with
a lot of averages, so it doesn'tmatter.
All they need is a relativecertainty that 51% of them are
(05:45):
going to vote for their way, andthere's no way to deny that.
I mean just based on theempirical records here.
So this is not disdainfultowards minorities.
It's not putting down peoplebased on their foreignness or
alienness.
It's just a matter of alertingpeople to the fact that the
(06:08):
ruling class that's currentlymanaging the administrative
state is making a very good betthat by flooding the country
with as many immigrants aspossible, they're going to be
able to affect election outcomeswhich keep them permanently in
power.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And you could say this.
You could make the sameargument about those who support
welfare policies making use ofghetto populations.
There's a population that's nowdependent on these policies
that you've created.
They're now your supporters.
They're now going to keepvoting for those policies.
So what you're saying isn'teven necessarily a statement
(06:49):
about where you're from.
It's more what are yourincentives?
What do you have incentives tokeep supporting these policies?
And so you're looking at thisas the motivation for basically
getting rid of immigrationcontrols at the border.
(07:10):
I mean, that's what it isYou're saying.
The motivation is reallyelections.
It's getting voters.
What about other things?
I mean some of the things thatwe've seen in Europe too, like
social destabilization.
Do you think that's deliberate?
Do you think that's somethingthat people are trying to create
(07:31):
here?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, I think the answer to that is yes.
I don't understand the Europeansituation very well and let me
say also this that most normalpeople are incapable of even
conceiving of a deeply maliciousaspiration for society, culture
(07:53):
and politics.
We don't understand the Joker.
We watch the movie and we'reintrigued by it.
We think that is one weird guy,but we don't imagine that the
Joker becomes the ruling classand puts together major
organizations like the WorldEconomic Forum with tentacles in
(08:15):
every administrative stateapparatus, and then the
Joker-style theory is preachedin all the universities and then
broadcast out to the mainstreammedia, and then the
administrative state works withtech companies to block people
who disagree with the Joker.
We can't even imagine that.
It seems ridiculous.
Yeah, it seems ridiculous, andyet I'm sorry to say that it
(08:37):
seems like that's basically agood description of what's going
on, and I think this is mostlycoming about.
My theory and anybody candisagree with me and tell me
that it goes back to the war ofthe roses, I don't care, but my
theory is that this attitudetowards destroying the social
(08:58):
order we have came about becauseof the rise of Boris Johnson in
the UK, whose mandate was toimplement Brexit, which
destroyed, which was a directattack on the idea of the
European Union, forced EuropeanUnion, the creation of a
(09:19):
supernational government inBrussels to manage the whole of
Europe.
Originally it started as a goodaspiration, but a restoration
of late medieval styles of unityor whatever.
But that's not like this.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, that's also like we talk about
accountability and relationshipto the people.
No accountability there.
No, not even democratic process.
The most undemocraticinstitution you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right and it's really evil because they use a kind of
a liberal idea of the EuropeanCommonwealth, which definitely
existed and say at the end ofthe religious wars in the 16th
and 17th century.
And so they use that and invokethat idea to build a
(10:06):
supernational state.
That's illiberal.
And so Boris Johnson comes topower in the UK and says, well,
okay, I'm going to give youBrexit and take the England,
scotland, wales and Ireland outof the European Union.
And that seemed to be areactionary move.
And so there was an attempt todestroy that movement and,
(10:30):
despite the people's multipletimes voting for Brexit, it's
like these people arereactionaries, they're dangerous
and they were all smeared asracist and all the usual Romides
.
And that happened.
At the same time.
Trump came to power here and therise of Trump in 2016 was, I
(10:50):
think, led to a kind of therewas an existential crisis for
the ruling class and I don'tneed to qualify here that I'm
not a fan of Trump.
I mean I wrote a whole bookagainst it.
I've been railing against theguy since 2015.
I mean I have all people.
I mean I had the first Englishlanguage article explaining that
(11:12):
Trump's ideology if he has oneis fascistic.
But the point is that he wasnot supposed to be president,
that Hillary Clinton wassupposed to be president.
So they looked at the outcomeof that election, said
democracy's broken, the peopleare rotten, everybody's an
interactionist, yeah, and wehave to get rid of democracy.
(11:34):
So one of the strangest thingsabout all this stuff is that you
hear now people in major mediaand the blue state Spokesperson,
pr or whatever, complainingthat Trump is anti-democratic.
That's just projection.
I mean, they've turned againstdemocracy because it generated
(11:56):
the wrong outcomes.
So ever since 2016, we've seenjust this barrage of attacks
against people that arequestioning the ruling class
Joker-style agenda.
And ever since then, we've seenthe rise of DEI and ESG and
(12:16):
then try to stick us all in anelectric vehicle to give us
15-minute cities and then lockus down.
Oh, stay home orders.
You can't go to church for twoChristmases in a row and your
kid can't go to school, andthat's all because of the great
pestilence which is Trump andBoris Johnson, and so this waves
(12:38):
of immigration is just anotherpiece of that.
It's not the exception, it ispart of the agenda.
I have to say, I became my firsttime to become aware of this,
and it's weird because once yousee it.
You can't unsee it.
But my first time to becomeaware of this was when I visited
(13:00):
my mother in Texas in thespring of 2021.
And I expected everybody inTexas to be all upset about the
lockdowns and the schoolclosures and the closing of
malls and businesses andeverything which there's plenty
to be upset about, but Icouldn't get anybody to talk
about that.
All they wanted to talk aboutwas the disastrous state of
(13:24):
civilization by virtue of theimmigration.
Well, I was shocked by thisbecause I hadn't really thought
of it that way and I didn'tthink of my mother and her
friends and everything as kindof like.
These are people I hadpreviously put in a box of
status fascists, you know.
And yet here I'm hearing normalpeople in a genuine heartfelt
(13:49):
meltdown over something themedia was not reporting on at
all, and I remember thinking atthe time I need to figure this
out Like it's not enough just tothrow out my you know, hit him
on the head with a book.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, I need to figure this out.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And so here we are three years later and I finally
have just said okay, I'm justnot going to go along with this.
This is stateism.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
When you talk with your mother and other people in
Texas.
For the people living there,what's the big deal?
Why are they upset?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well, part of the problem is that the perception
that they're losing control overthe rules under which they live
.
You know that their vote isbeing taken away from them and
you know what's interestingabout this, brittany, is that
(14:49):
it's technically illegal forundocumented migrants to vote in
federal elections or stateelections.
But it's a question of theverification.
What is the method by whichyou're verifying people's
(15:13):
identities and their rights toassist in the creation of laws
under which we live?
And those vary widely fromstate to state.
And there's no question thatthe dominant goal and this has
been, I feel like such an agefor not saying this it's been
going on for years that the goalof these, of the blue staters
(15:36):
and sort of ruling class voguestares in general, is to water
these rules down ever more.
I mean, texas passed a lawthrough the legislature that
said look, if you're going tovote, you've got to be able to
provide identity.
Well, there was total hysteria.
I mean like everybody'sscreaming no, this is right,
this is evil.
And it's like wait, what?
(15:56):
I mean?
I can't even buy a pack ofcigarettes in the convenience
store without showing myidentity card.
What is wrong with you people?
It never made any sense.
The goal is to water it down tothe point that they can
manipulate the outcome.
So, for example, in Arizona Imean, elon Musk has been all
over this the standard has beenthat you can vote in federal
(16:18):
elections.
You can't vote in stateelections without showing
verification.
You can't vote in federalelections.
If you check the box that saysyou're a US citizen on an
absentee ballot, that's what itreally requires, just check the
box.
So now you've got anywherebetween 10 and 20 million people
(16:38):
we have no idea how many havecome over the last four years
that are in a position.
They don't even have to do itthemselves.
You see, I mean you can getelection workers and
non-government organizations andthese activists, groups and
everything else just to do itfor them, just to lean in.
And next thing, you know you'reflooding red states with blue
(17:01):
state ballots, unbeknownst tothe migrants.
But then you count them up andgo well, there's not many people
here, there's this many ballotsthat make sense.
And then it's at the point, ifyou call voter fraud, that
everybody says oh, that'sdisinformation.
And now the media's comingafter you, and so on.
(17:21):
So I mean this is real and Iguess my point is under pure
libertarian theory.
We favor a free movement ofpeople, of course, but part of
that has to involve certainrules, and one of the rules is
that you can't I can't move toJapan, for example, and get on
(17:45):
welfare and bring all my friendsin and affect the outcome of
elections.
So that I mean and if you didthat you would seriously anger
the population, say the least.
Right, I mean, there would be amass movement to elect an
authoritarian leader to get ridof me and my friends, and
(18:05):
there's no world in which thatmakes any sense.
But that's precisely what'sgoing on here, and let me just
back up slightly.
I know I'm talking too much.
If you just want to cut me off.
You can cut me off, but.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Oh no, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
FA Hayek's credentials as a good liberal
are in question Good libertarianliberal.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But in I'd argue with that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
But well, well, when it comes to certain aspects of
the comments, that's true.
I mean it was one bad chapterin red surf to buy, but just in
general.
I mean he's you know, and in1974, he wrote a letter to the
London Times over a question ofmigration, and in this case it
(18:56):
was concerned Muslim migration,which is really growing in the
UK.
And he said he said somethinginteresting.
He said there is a danger whenthere's too much migration
coming in that is of a differentsort than that doesn't mix well
(19:23):
with a history, religion andlanguage of the host territory.
And that he says I don't likethis, but it does whip people up
into anger and it pushes a lotof buttons on the part of the
people, and this can lead todisaster, it can lead to
(19:44):
authoritarian outcomes.
So, in the name of preservingliberty, I would strongly
suggest that the UK grow aboutthis as rationally as possible,
for fear of repeating disastersfrom the past.
And the disaster that was inhis mind in particular was the
interwar period in Germany,where he believed that the type
(20:09):
of migration that went on duringthe Weimar period was seemingly
meritorious and virtuous andcreating sanctuaries for all
these people ultimately ended upin triggering the population
and scapegoating immigrants foreverything bad, unfairly
(20:31):
everything that bad washappening in the country.
That of course, led to thecalamities that we know about.
So that was Hayek's view.
So reading that kind of struckme.
That's interesting, becauseyou're not arguing for barriers
that are there At the border.
(20:54):
What you're doing isforecasting very likely
political outcomes based on yourread of history, and that's a
very different kind of project.
Rothbard observed the same thingafter 1989 when the Soviet
(21:15):
Union fell apart.
He took no sense.
There's various, too, toobserve and, by the way, I don't
need to tell you I dismissedall this at the time.
I thought, oh, rothbard'sselling out, rothbard's doing
the same crazy thing.
But what he actually observedwas that, sporadically over the
previous 50 years prior to thewhole Soviet experiment falling
(21:38):
apart, that Moscow had engagedin a systematic attempt to
permanently colonize, with itsresidents, with Russians proper,
all of the territories that itconquered as a way of securing a
permanent political control.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
China did the same thing.
China did the same thing inminority areas in Tibet.
So one big issue for me isputting this in the context of
libertarianism, a desire forfree societies.
Is we talk about what's goingon right now as an immigration
(22:18):
issue?
To me, it's much more thanwhat's happening at the border
right now is not immigration.
I mean, I've been an immigrant.
I've gone to other countries tolive and work and never has
someone been waiting there forme with a bus ticket or a plane
ticket or hotel.
(22:39):
Here's your hotel room.
We're going to put you up andtell you how to vote and all
this stuff.
So, as you say, there's a lotmore going on.
This is not just open borders.
This is not just freeimmigration.
This is a whole project ofbringing people in, subsidizing
them.
We're paying for this, Ataxpayer expense subsidizing
(23:00):
these people to come in and dowhat impacts demographics, voter
voting outcomes, that kind ofthing.
But I don't think it's fair tosay that it's just immigration,
that it's just open borders.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I agree with that, and this is part of the
complication we have.
The US right now has, inreality, the most restrictive
immigration policy we've had in100 years.
If you're Norwegian, swedish,german or Taiwanese or English
(23:40):
or Australian, there's almost noway you can get residency in
this country.
I mean, you can get temporaryvisas, but then they're going to
kick you out and even thenthey're making you get COVID
shots, which even to apply forresidency.
So it's extremely hard to getan H1B visa, get E3s, to get
(24:06):
green cards.
It's very, very, very difficult.
Quotas are very tight.
Trump lowered all these things,and so immigration to this
country has been never moredifficult.
At the same time, you've gotfederal agents going into Texas
and actively and coercivelypreventing Texas border guards
(24:29):
from securing the border againstactual having the country
sacked.
I mean, it's unbelievable andyou can go back in history and
this is what it means for, like,if you look up, what does it
mean for a country to be sacked?
This is it.
So this is not the carrying out.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
They're not coming in and attacking people's homes
and vandalizing and pillagingand all that.
That's not happening.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Well in New York they're living in the finest
hotels and also many authoritiesin the city of New York have
pleaded with residents to openup their homes and also school.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's where New Yorkers are going to say no, I
know New Yorkers.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Public, but schools have been canceled in many parts
of the country.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
For that.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So that the migrants can be housed in the public
schools.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So yeah, it's going away.
It's like sacking, but with theactive cooperation of the
federal government?
Yeah, yeah, that's, and I thinkyou're right.
Getting back to the Jokeranalogy, I think it's it's hard
for people to recognize whentheir own government is at war
with them.
And you know, for those of uswho kind of recognize the nature
(25:55):
of the state and that what itdoes, what it does, is kind of
always at war with us, becauseit's always at odds with what
free people would be doing, youknow, without that coercion.
But this is like a reallydramatic example of that.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Very intense and dramatic example.
It's so dramatic that I'm Ishould stop doing my mayor
copers, but I'm deeplyembarrassed that I went
basically a long time withoutwithout seeing it.
Ironically, I think one of theproblems that libertarians have
is that they underestimate theevil of the government.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yeah, look at how they responded to COVID
Absolutely, absolutelyunderestimate it's all.
You know.
They're they're, you know it's,it's inefficient, you know
they're doing things just alittle bit not quite right.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
They need my advice, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, they don't.
They don't see the, themagnitude of that evil.
It's, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Let me address something, since you're so
indulgent and we're focused onthis arcane areas that
libertarianism.
But my friend Alex NorastaNorasta, norasta at Kato, wrote
a big piece the other day on thesubject, which generally sided
(27:17):
with the Biden administration,and I'm not over the mindset
that just dismisses argumentsout of hand because they come to
the wrong conclusions.
I like to dig throughintelligent argument and see if
it's right or wrong.
So I read this piece verycarefully and he makes two
(27:40):
really important claims.
The first one and I would liketo take these one at a time the
first one is that the reason forthe increase in illegalization
is illegal immigration, is theshutdown of legal paths.
Okay, my thought about that isthat there's a grain of truth to
(28:02):
that and it goes back to theborder response after 9-11.
So I grew up in a in a bordercity in Texas, in El Paso, and
it was very, you know.
There was a constant stream ofpeople from Mexico coming in
doing day jobs and then goingback at night and it was very
cooperative.
We didn't have walls, nobodycared about this stuff.
(28:24):
It was just, you know, high,just walk through the border,
that's it.
You know, it was no big dealand everything was fine.
There's nothing wrong.
But after 9-11, suddenly wecracked down on the border, so
it made that impossible, madethat sort of day work impossible
.
And so now you, you create anincentive to break the law, to
get a come across and stay.
(28:45):
Yeah, okay, if you don't haveopen borders then you have every
.
That means it's ironic, butclosed borders actually
incentivize people to break thelaw.
So there's, there's an elementof truth there.
I don't know how we go back.
I mean, why is there such apush to build a wall?
We've, we've lived on theborder of Mexico, for, you know,
since 1834 or whatever it isand whenever Texas declared
(29:10):
independence, and never had awall.
Well, why is this going on?
Well, I think it all traces tothe response of 9-11.
We stopped allowing day workersand work permits and free flow
of people back and forth inprinted relations and suddenly
treated everybody on the otherside of the borders and enemies.
So, so, so, so.
(29:30):
For 25 years has been going onthat people, just you know, find
every means to get across andlet's get across.
They're like, oh, thank God,I'm home, free, and then they
stay.
So that's new.
So some extent Alex's point hasa point there, and he's also
right that there are legalimmigration has never been more
difficult.
Okay, so I'll concede that.
(29:53):
But what that as an explanationmisses is the sheer scale.
I mean, that's the.
Nowhere is coming to terms withthe sheer scale, and I'm not
talking about as a percentage ofthe population.
That's one way that people sayisn't that unusual?
Because look back at 1890, youknow, you look at the total
(30:14):
population relative to theimmigrant population.
We're much lower now than wewere.
It's all ridiculous.
We've never had 20 millionpeople come across the border
undocumented in the span ofthree years.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I mean, this is just.
Is that a legitimate number?
Is it 20 million?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It depends on how you believe.
I mean, like nobody knows forsure, but it's certainly between
10 and 20.
Or it could be as high as 22.
Those are high.
22 is high number, but five isa excessively low number.
So nobody knows the actualnumbers.
But this we've never seenanything like this.
I don't think Alex's point.
I think there's a lot ofvalidity to his argument and the
(30:53):
abstract but it doesn't addressthe reality on the ground.
Now, the second thing he claimsis that everybody who's coming
here is coming here to work.
Doesn't seem to be the case.
I don't know.
I mean that this painting witha very broad, broad brush, I
think everybody could be put towork, but the problem is we have
extremely strict rules onemploying these people.
(31:15):
So, you know, the same thinghappened in France and Germany,
you know, after the Iraq war,when they faced this gigantic
migrant crisis, they hadmigrants all over the place, but
none of them were allowed towork because of the union rules.
So you're bringing in these, asthey say, fighting age males,
(31:36):
billions, and not giving themwork opportunities.
So, even if they wanted to work, they can't work, yeah, except
under the table.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah.
So it's a whole different thingfrom the kind of the
immigration that you know, thatsort of built this country,
built the current population,that was, people coming in
having to make their own way.
This whole thing of justimporting a bunch of people and
either, you know, in the case ofEurope, not allowing them to
work or subsidizing them so theydon't have to, that's a
(32:06):
different thing, you know.
You could still argue, I guess,that that's a good thing, but
it's not the same thing as justnormal immigration.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It's a very different animal and people have an
existential fear of it andthat's why it's the number one
issue in the country, becausethey believe and I think rightly
so this is going to permanentlychange the character of the
country.
It's going to permanentlyentrench a blue majority and, by
the way, one of the reasonsthis has become such a priority
for the Biden administration inparticular is that after COVID
(32:37):
lockdowns, there's mass wave ofexodus from blue states to red,
which is giving red states newseats in Congress when the next
census is taken and all thereallocations of political power
go around.
So we've got a huge shift fromblue to red in this country.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I'm one of those people.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.
So how are you going to counterthat?
I mean, what's your plan to dowith gigantic population shifts
away from status policiestowards freedom policies?
If you want to preserve statism, you got to get new people in
to counter that and to flood thered zone as much as possible,
and that is precisely what'shappening.
(33:19):
So this is the other policiesof Texas and Florida to take the
migrants and put them on busesand planes and send them to
Martha's Vineyard in New Yorkand Chicago is an attempt to
foil that, and it's beeninterestingly successful in some
(33:41):
ways, because that, I mean, I'msorry, libertarians are totally
behind on all this stuff.
This war is taking placebecause Texas knows exactly what
the Biden administration is upto and Florida knows exactly
what the Biden administration isup to, so they're attempting to
there are other people involvedin busing migrants too.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I mean there's like.
Ngos and folks, and I don'treally understand.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Well, they're taking them to red zones, right?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, yeah, who's taking them to New York?
Who's Is that?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's Texas and Florida sending them on buses to
, because they're definitelytrying to keep them out and with
weird rules, like no buses canWith undocumented immigrants can
come here between this hour andthat hour.
It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
But then who's paying the hotel bills for those
people?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
The taxis yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
But I mean, through what Like is it the city of New
York saying, okay, they're herenow?
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So they're putting them up in Nice hotels, very
nice hotels.
So, and you know, I have to sayyou know, my views on this have
been building for a while andit's like I'm a little stupid,
but one thing that is hard forme to ignore are facts.
(35:07):
Okay, so Manhattan today isnothing like what it was 10
years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm hearing that yeah .
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
We go to midtown.
First of all, it's extremelydangerous, especially at night.
There's just zombies fallingover the streets and the whole
thing is like a dystopian movie,because once you get to the
Central Park area and above, youget to the Upper East Side and
(35:36):
Upper West Side and that kind ofthing, you can do safety there.
But if you have to make yourway out of those areas through
to midtown to take a trip orsomething like that, it's just
like going through the jungle.
People are increasinglyterrified.
So New York is to be a city ofunrelenting mobility within
(36:00):
Manhattan.
Yeah, it's no longer, as Peopleare terrified, wow.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
They're communities, that's.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Okay.
So I think we're bothanti-state, we're both against
the institution of the state.
What do you think, what do youimagine that immigration would
look like in a world without astate?
Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So, yeah, this gets into a complicated area because
I mean, are we saying thatthere's without a state anywhere
?
But does that mean withoutnations?
I mean, would the nationdisappear without the state?
And that's a big question.
(36:54):
Meas is himself addressed it inhis 1919 book Nation, state and
Economy.
He makes a distinction betweenthe nation and the state and he
theorizes that there is such athing as a nation because
there's a perception that thereare features of life that are
(37:17):
common to people.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Okay, so so culturally based.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, there's certain comments in any society that
are unavoidable.
You can't like, even in aprivate subdivision there's
comments, right?
I mean there's sidewalks,there's streets, even if they're
private.
There's the air you breathe,there's your neighbor across
street.
There are certain things wehave in common and the purpose
(37:44):
of nationhood is to somehowregulate those comments, to come
to some kind of consensus abouthow we want to live.
I mean, can I defecate in abucket and throw it out my
window on the ground, and whatimpact does that have on the
health of other people?
I mean, these questionslibertarians don't like to talk
about them, but I mean, justlike in the real world, things
(38:07):
like how we're going to manageour, our common lives really
does matter.
So the idea of a nation hasmany pieces, and they involve
religion, they involve, yes,race, they involve language,
(38:29):
they involve shared histories,shared dynasties, a shared sense
of people-ness, which can beindependent of race and language
.
Okay, it can be independent ofreligion.
These are all I mean.
I think Rana or the Frenchtheorists identified five
(38:51):
possible things that constitutenationhood.
So you're likely you can getrid of one or two or even three.
You're not going to get rid ofall five.
And if you do get rid of allfive, then your sense of
nationhood disappears.
Nationhood is just a realityfor all of recorded human
(39:13):
history.
That sense of rules to regulateour comments, and with that
comes a sense of who we are andwho we're going to include, and
whether that's done throughprivate means or state means, I
just don't know.
Now we have states now.
(39:34):
So the question is, am Isuggesting to the state what it
should do?
And not really, because I don'treally know the answers to that
and we've had long debates inAmerican history about this and
we've had at the originalconstitution the states
themselves would regulate whowas admitted to citizenship.
(39:56):
It's a reasonable solution.
I think States are organicpolitical communities.
By the way, mises's view ofnationhood is that it's all
comes down to language primarily.
I think it's a little distortedbut it's pretty interesting.
But the American idea was todecentralize the decision as low
as possible, that that was thebest possible solution.
(40:17):
Well, that went away.
And then we got birthrightcitizenship much, much later.
And then, which was designed toright the wrong of the
tremendous evil of slavery,right, I mean that was just the
(40:38):
great evil of the Americanexperiment.
I mean everything was justbeautiful about the American
founding.
And then there's this onehorrible thing, yeah, and it had
such an impact on what followed.
I mean it's just terrifying theextent to which so much of
(41:00):
American politics, from thefounding all the way through the
Civil War and after and evennow, revolves around that one
great evil.
I mean it's unbelievable whenyou think about just how could
such a beautiful experiment beso wrecked.
But anyway, and after the greatimmigration of the 1880s and
(41:20):
1890s which was not withoutproblems, by the way, it wasn't
just like oh, this is glorious,ireland and Italy and the world
comes here and everything'swonderful no, that gave birth to
exactly what Hayek predicted, akind of reaction and movement.
And when Darwin's book calledthe Descentive man came out and
(41:48):
he was an earnest thinker and soon, but this book was calamity,
because the book said thathuman beings have to curate
themselves to avoid devolution.
We need to evolve constantly,which means we need to regulate
our breeding patterns.
And so that set off a wave ofpanic that led eventually to
(42:12):
eugenics, to racialists thinking.
The entire American upper classwas converted to extremist,
cranky, race-based theoriesabout the future of civilization
.
So that was one of the costs ofthat wave of immigration is
that it set that in motion.
By 1923, we had the impositionof the laws Calvin Kuhler signed
(42:33):
it.
That was very strange and verystrict about immigration that
basically favored Anglo-Saxonsand deprecated Slavs, southern
Italians and Jews in particular.
Okay, so that was 1923.
And, yeah, it was quitecatastrophic.
(42:57):
That law was quite catastrophicand bound to create a reaction.
So when Jews started fleeingduring the Great Diaspora,
german-occupied territories totry to find safety, they
couldn't find it in Americabecause of US immigration law,
(43:19):
because in those days Jewsweren't white people, they were
considered asiatic and foreignand poisonous by the American
ruling class.
Okay, so after World War II,then there was a reaction to
that.
And then we got the 1965immigration bill which picked up
the same racial themes, exceptreverse them in the other
(43:41):
direction, which is crazy.
That's just as bad as 1965.
It was just bad as 1923.
It's just that it was theopposite policy which gave rise
to a new reactionary movement.
What are you doing to ourcountry, gradually, over time?
So I think both theseapproaches are wrong.
(44:02):
I mean, look again, I'm notadvising the state and I don't
think the state is open to goodadvice anyway.
But if you had, let's say, aresponsible leadership of a
nation.
It would seek to bring peoplein who were seeking to work,
(44:25):
that were not criminals, thatevery intuition says we're going
to contribute to the nationalwell-being and not annoy
residents to the point that theypursue reactionary movements
and things like this.
You would build a nation basedon what is good for the peace
(44:46):
and prosperity and domestictranquility of all.
That's what you would do, notwith some weird agenda to get
rid of the slobs, get rid of theJews or down with white people.
We have way too many of them.
You can't use the immigrationsystem for demographic curation
(45:10):
of the population.
There should be a goal to bringpeople here who can acculturate
and make a contribution to thewell-being of all.
I mean that seems to be theanswer.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
It seems to me, though, that, knowing everything
I know about the state and howit operates, it seems to me that
there's a fundamental problemwith incentives, that any state
entity, any monopoly on force,has incentives that are not
(45:47):
aligned with the people livingunder it and not aligned with,
if you want to call it, thegreater good or the community.
They're just not aligned.
They don't have the sameincentives.
When I look at, how would youhave a nation state that does
this?
Well, it's hard to imagine thatnot becoming something like
(46:15):
what we're seeing now, wherethose powers are used to gain
power for itself and ultimatelyharm the people living.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I agree with that, but the thing is that there are
various places around the worldand experiences where this seems
to have been handled, leasttemporarily, pretty well Japan,
south Korea, sweden.
But Sweden gave in At somepoint.
They were just intimidated byall the propaganda and
(46:49):
everything and opened up thefloodgates.
By the way, I can't believethis is me talking.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
That's another thing I wanted to just bring up is the
one thing Again, I'm completelyanti-state.
Yet the one thing that gives mepause is my experience in Japan
.
I lived there for two years.
What you're saying isabsolutely right.
It's one of the places in theworld where the government
(47:18):
actually does corrupt it in someways in that country, of course
.
All governments are corrupt, butas far as the kind of
immigration policy you'retalking about, they do seem to
have done that.
What I think is really hard forprobably, I'm going to say, any
(47:39):
American who hasn't livedoverseas what it's really hard
to appreciate is the depth andthe value of what's preserved
there.
Japanese culture is cohesive ina way that no subculture in
America is.
It kind of defies description.
(48:02):
But it's like you're in thisplace and after you get to know
it and you understand how thingswork, you realize that you're
surrounded by people who allshare the same values and who
you leave your camera on a benchin this.
Some way Someone's going tomake a real effort to bring that
(48:24):
back to you.
There are just certain thingsthat you can predict that will
happen Again.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I'm basically that's what I said the regulation of
the commons.
That's what I'm referring to.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Right, but we haven't had that in this country.
We have a much watered-downversion of what that is.
I think if you haven'texperienced how amazing it can
be to live in a society thatfunctions well and where the
commons are respected byeveryone, where everyone kind of
respects the common space andrespects each other, if you
(49:05):
don't know that, then you don'tknow what you've lost.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Japan's a unique situation, or maybe it's not
unique, it's just.
Oh, by the way, let's just looka little further into this
because, again, there's afundamentalist idea within our
world to always come up with aclear answer to everything.
Let's just explore the questionShould political communities
(49:38):
aspire to be homogeneous orheterogeneous?
Okay, that's kind of aninteresting question, and I
think the answer is that it alldepends on the organic
development of the community.
So in the Middle East and theMediterranean, mixed populations
have been part of theexperience of the region, and
(49:59):
that's been true for thousandsof years, and nobody can imagine
it otherwise than everybody isdelighted by it.
So people speak three languagesJudaism, islam and Christianity
have coexisted, not withoutproblems, but largely coexisted,
for thousands of years, manythousands of years actually.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
And problems are mostly exacerbated when the
state steps in and tries toforce.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, when one group seeks to become dominant, then
it becomes a problem, anddominant and illiberal, yeah,
and that's what has happenedvariously throughout history.
But heterogeneity is just part,and Americans are used to
heterogeneity too.
When the original settlers cameover here, they attempted to
(50:47):
divide themselves up into tribes, right.
So Rhode Island was, orMaryland was weirdly Catholic,
virginia was Anglican, and theywere very trying to curate the
popular, their politicalcommunities based on religion,
and then that devolved intoslave owning versus not slave
(51:10):
owning, which is unbelievablywicked.
But eventually, over time,there grew to be a very
comfortable heterogeneity, andyou've lived in New York.
You know what that feels like,and most people are fine with
that.
I mean, it seems to work for us.
But there are other politicalcommunities that have always
been traditionally homogeneous,and that is the essence of what
(51:32):
it means for them to live andexperience the world that they
do.
So every American is fromsomewhere, and if you ask
anybody in Japan where you'refrom, they will tell you they're
from Japan.
It's very simple they're fromJapan.
Now, americans can't imaginethat, right?
No, where are your ancestorsfrom Japan, right?
(51:56):
I mean, that's it.
That's the fun.
Americans can't even imaginethat.
So every experience isdifferent and I think we need to
kind of recognize that, thatthere needs to be some sense of
deference to the prevailingorganic experiences of the
people and how they've come todevelop a social order that is
(52:18):
peaceful, leads to tranquilityand portas artist's blessings on
the most possible people at anyone time.
And what that looks likeexactly you cannot say a priori.
You really do have to look atthe history and the specifics of
the circumstances of time andplace of a particular area.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, I mean, I don't have an answer either,
especially given my experiencein Japan.
I can't.
I don't have an answer, but I'mpretty sure it has something to
do with incentives and thatthings get worse to the extent
that you have an entity that isbased on force and that is not
(53:00):
really accountable to anyone,the more that has an influence
in society.
I just think, whether it'simmigration or anything else, I
think things are going to beworse and, as we're seeing right
now, immigration policy isbeing weaponized to attack us.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
That's right.
And anytime you impose aexogenously imposed
rationalistic construct ofdemographic ideals on a country
where it's not part of itsexperiences and history, you're
engaged in a kind of an act ofviolence.
So, for example, let's just sayI dreamed up the idea that
(53:42):
there's no way America is goingto survive without being ruled
by a Spanish monarch.
Okay, and I somehow get controlof the system of government and
make King Maximilian the secondof the monarch of America.
Now, how sustainable is that?
How long is that going to last?
(54:03):
Is that actually going to begood for the country?
There's no conditions underwhich that is a good idea.
Reimposing the monarchy inBrazil might actually have some
plausible effect.
In a way, the monarchy fromEngland would be itself a kind
of an act of violence too,unless it was done.
No, at this point I thinkyou're kind of sick of it.
(54:24):
Maybe there's no good monarch.
Actually there's one goodmonarch.
If they took away the monarchyof Lichtenstein, that would be
an act of violence.
So there needs to be somedeference.
And if you're, imposingheterogeneity of politically
(54:45):
participating citizens in Japanwould be a malicious act that
would finally disrupt society.
But imposing political equalityof access in a homogeneous
population in America woulditself be an act of violence.
So there has to be a way inwhich the immigration system is
(55:12):
deferential to the ways that apolitical community has learned
to organize itself, given itshistory and understanding of who
they are.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, I also feel like America has this unique
problem of it's just too big.
I don't think it's legitimateto try and make a country of 350
million people to try andpretend that that's one culture
or that's one, even one if youwant to call it a nation, isn't
it?
Speaker 2 (55:41):
crazy and we've been doing this for 200 years,
basically Like when I don't knowwhat year the US made Hawaii a
state yeah, I do that 40s orsomething like that but suddenly
all Americans were being taughtcertain Hawaiian words, like
aloha, and learning hula dancesand stuff like that.
(56:03):
So we have this funny way ofincorporating our empire,
rolling our empire back into theit's silly, it's silly.
It's silly.
Yeah, the 13 colonies, maybemutual defense cooperative, but
the way the American empire hasgrown, it's shocking and God
(56:29):
knows it's probably unviable.
I mean, there's something inall of us that wants her to be a
union, an American union.
I remember when RFK was askedwhen he was in New Hampshire at
Porfest, where oh, yes, carlaasked him about.
Yeah, oh, you were there yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
I heard about it.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, and you go to a Libertarian meeting, you better
prepare yourself becausesomething crazy is going to
happen.
And so Carla said would you beokay if New Hampshire succeeded?
And I had introduced him andI'm aware of who Libertarians
are and how kind of delightfullyinsane they are.
But I was mortified.
(57:13):
I was like Jesus Christ, Aren'tthere other responsible
questions you could ask?
But still it elicited an answerwhich is basically nostalgic
and romantic.
It's like you know, I'm nothere to break up the union, I'm
here to bring us together as arestore, the old American people
.
And a very lovely answer insome ways.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
It's lovely, I just don't think it's realistic.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Whether it can happen or not is another matter.
Yeah, what bothers me about theRFK candidacy in general?
This is an aside.
I think it's basically based onnostalgia and his nine is not
(57:56):
functionally policy oriented.
So, like anytime he has aspecific policy, it's not quite
right and there's simply wrongwith it, but his aspirations and
his dreams are glorious.
But you know, I mean, that'swhat we learn from the time.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
He wants to go after the pharma industrial complex by
reforming it.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
He wants to unplug the private interests from
government agencies.
I mean, I'm against corporatismtoo, but I tell you, one way to
get something even worse thancorporatism is to fully
eliminate all the corruption andleaving only abstract
power-wielding, insanely stupid,disconnected bureaucrats with
(58:43):
total power over the population,with no check on them from
private industry at all.
Actually, the only thing worsethan a corrupt FDA that's
captured by big pharma is?
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Is it an independent one?
Yeah, I mean, let's just getrid of those agencies, let's
just yeah, it could be worse.
Yeah, it could be worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
That's a terrible, I mean, and a great coalition.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
I'm not that far from it.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
I mean, no, I'm in a great coalition with a lot of
anti-corporatists, as you couldimagine in my post lockdown
iteration.
But yeah, this is this visionof like how to fix the problem
is something Beyond the paradigmthat we're in.
Speaker 1 (59:37):
I mean, to me the paradigm is the problem.
It's this paradigm of statecontrol and coercion.
If you can't see beyond that,you're never going to get out of
it.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Yeah, and one reason I'm appreciative of some of the
positions who are thenon-libertarians who are
critiquing corporatism right nowis they've taught me something
I was really a little unaware of, which was the extent to which.
So, as libertarians, I alwaysthink the state is the great
evil, but creating thesebinaries between public and
private, and then demonizing oneand valorizing the other, can
(01:00:10):
get you only so far when youbegin to notice conditions under
which the state itself is beingmanipulated, primarily by
private interests, and so thatplays with the libertarian mind.
We don't know what to do withthat, but you see that in the
case of pharmaceuticalregulation and, for that matter,
(01:00:31):
military and you trust, yeah,military imperialism, I mean,
these are all being pushed bywealthy, powerful ruling class
elites, whether they're ingovernment or private industry
or nonprofit foundations.
The evil is present in all ofthem.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yeah, there's all kinds of people who profit from
coercion, and I think in thesort of on the left, there's
this tendency to think thatlibertarian means you're
defending the corporate entitiesor you're defending those
people, and I think somelibertarians fall into that trap
too.
But that's not it.
It's a system.
It's a system that we'redefending, and the corporate
(01:01:15):
state system benefits a lot ofpeople who aren't in the state,
because they know how to use thestate to get their goodies.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, they're driving the policy forward.
I mean, that's actually one ofthe weirdest things I've
discovered.
You know that the techcompanies themselves that aspire
to have the state censordisinformation, and why?
Because they want to destroythe competition.
So if you can smear all yourcompetition as spreading
(01:01:45):
disinformation to use statepower to go after them, you'll
do it.
So it's not the case that poorinnocent Facebook was having to
obey the demands of the CDC.
That's not it at all.
Facebook is begging the CDC tocrush my competition.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
So the board has been calling for speech controls for
even before COVID, I think,yeah, we've been calling for
that yeah, and the media's gotthis desperate desire to survive
right now, so they'll use, doanything.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
It's not going to work, but they're doing anything
possible to get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
I need to read you this one quote.
You'll laugh at this and then Iwill let you go.
But I don't know if you saw theCNN report on what's going on
with that Texas at the beginning.
Basically, they're calling it,they're framing it, as the Texas
takeover now.
So here's the CNN headline theseized part of the US-Mexico
(01:02:44):
border and blocked federalBorder Patrol agents and the
whole.
It's a little video clip andthe whole message is the reason
Border Patrol can't get in thereto do their job is because the
Texas authorities have takenover.
That's how they're.
I just thought you'd get a kickout of that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Oh, it's even worse than that.
I mean, the newest line is thatthe US government is trying to
stop Texas from permittingchildren to drown.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Right, I saw that too .
Yeah, they just wanted to getin there and protect them.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Yeah, protect.
Look, there's three drownings.
Three kids drowned.
For God's sake, texas, what iswrong with you letting kids
drown?
You know the federalgovernment's here to save these
poor people from drowning, sothis is just deep state
propaganda.
But mostly they're not coveringit.
And we're now 10 days into thedepths of the crisis and there
(01:03:40):
is a dearth of reporting on thisat all from New York Times and
the Wall Street Journal, andvarious messages are being
tested at alternative venueslike Vox and White, and the
message testing is the savingkids from drowning kind of stuff
that Texas has kicked out theBorder Patrol that's trying to.
Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Trying to save the kids?
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yeah, and they're trying to see how stupidly
orange yeah, and so this is theway the censorship, industrial
media, captured media, complexworks is.
They're waiting to figure out,because this is a problem,
because 100% of the Americanpeople are on the side of Texas
at this point.
It's just ridiculous.
So how do you message that youknow if you're going to use your
(01:04:31):
captured media to defend theBiden position?
Well, first you have to try outmessaging.
And your other kept places weknow what those are now.
They're Rolling Stone and Wiredand Vox and so on.
These are basically Sorry toput it this way, but they're
(01:04:55):
basically CIA operations at thispoint.
So they try out variousmessaging and once it settles
down, they can figure outsomething that's compelling, and
then the New York Times willput it above the fold.
Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Right After it's presented.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, and then NPR will be all over it, and so on.
So yeah, once you get thedecoder, ring everything makes
sense.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
This has been great yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
And I want to thank you for your open-mindedness and
your and just so anybody who'slistening understands who you
are you're highly sophisticated,great-learning, a lifetime of
reading and reflection onfundamental issues concerning
human rights, liberties andsocial organization.
You are not unsophisticatedperson in this realm and I
(01:05:42):
appreciate your subtlety ofthought, your willingness to
grapple sort of truthfully withempirical reality and come to
terms with what that means foryour life aspiration, which is
to live freely and incooperation with everybody else
too.
So having me on being willingto have a completely honest
(01:06:05):
discussion, I think says a lotabout you, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Oh, thank you.
I mean, I think it's important,you know, and it can be tough
sometimes, like if you'rewriting about things, it can be
tough to take on an issue whenyou don't have an answer and
I'll check.
Yeah, I don't have an answer.
I don't.
I understand.
Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Well, let's both keep Stay critically-minded, keep
thinking and doing what we canto make the world a better place
.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Awesome, thank you.
You've been listening to what,then Must we Do?
The podcast.
For those who understand thatthe state is the problem and are
seeking solutions For moreepisodes, go to
bretneysubstackcom.
I G N E dot substack dot comand subscribe.
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