Imagine you have an antique car in your back yard behind a privacy fence. A neighbor climbs your fence, sees the car, and decides something must be done about it. How he decided your property is his concern is a mystery. Clearly, he’s a bad neighbor who doesn’t mind his own business. Then it gets worse. He doesn’t ask about the car, offer to buy it or to help you get it running. Instead, he hires the local crime boss to force you to build a shed for the car, paint it pink, give it square wheels, and pay an annual ransom for the privilege of owning it. Or else it will be taken from you and you’ll be punished. This is how government solves problems.
Tag: immigration
The Noble Crony: Big Business on the Politics of Business
There are major policies where the business community prevails over the popular will. Indeed, there are major policies that would be helpless political orphans without the patronage of business elites. But happily, business has both prudence and justice on its side.
Tortured “Complexity”
When someone is about to start doing some mental contortionism in order to try to justify statism, they’ll often make the statement, “it’s a very complex issue“. No, it really isn’t. They’re lying to try to appear deep and smart and to justify the unjustifiable.
Big Business: Recasting the Anti-Hero
My main criticism: Tyler is so pro-business that he often forgets (at least rhetorically) to be pro-market. He spends minimal time calling for moderate deregulation – and even less calling for radical deregulation. So while he effectively calls attention to everything business does for us, he barely shows readers how much business could do for us if government got out of the way.
You Have No Right to Your Culture
Most complaints about immigration are declarative: “Immigrants take our jobs.” “Immigrants abuse the welfare state.” “Immigrants won’t learn English.’ “Immigrants will vote for Sharia.” One complaint, however, is usually phrased as a question: “But don’t people have a right to their culture?” When people so inquire, their tone is usually conciliatory, as if to say, “Surely, even you will accept this.” My considered judgment, however, is that this challenge is a true Trojan Horse. No one, no one, has “a right to their culture.”
Governing Least‘s Immigration Oversight
Dan Moller’s Governing Least barely mentions immigration. But it should have, because of its strong implications for this hugely important issue. Applying Moller’s approach, there is not only a moral presumption in favor of open borders, but a host of residual obligations that accompany even justified restrictions on immigration.
Dan Moller’s Governing Least
Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority is definitely my favorite work of libertarian political philosophy. Dan Moller’s new Governing Least, however, is definitely now my second-favorite work of libertarian political philosophy. The two books have much in common: Both use common-sense ethics to argue for libertarian politics. Both are calm, logical, and ever-mindful of potential criticisms. …
The Most Controversial Belief
The most controversial belief of libertarians (and partisan Libertarians) is the belief that you’re generally both more entitled and more qualified to run your life than someone else is. Who considers that belief controversial? “Mainstream” politicians and their supporters.
Compulsory Schooling Laws Aren’t Progressive, They’re Inhumane
Someone asked me recently if I could wave a magic wand and do one thing to improve American education what would it be. Without hesitation, I replied: Eliminate state compulsory schooling statutes. Stripping the state of its power to define and control education under a legal threat of force is a necessary step in pursuit of education freedom and parental empowerment.
Reviewing Paranoia
Hysteria and paranoia aside, what’s wrong with the book? Salam engages in extreme reverse engineering, where even the most favorable facts about immigration somehow become extra reasons to oppose it.