Ep 68: Borders, War and Physical removal. Part 1 Mainstream Incoherence.

The mindcrime liberty show discusses why most modern political theorists have an emotive incoherence and hypocrisy towards borders. With the rise of Donald Trump the libertarian movement split over the issue which ironically blew up in reverse with the shutdown. Many, but not all, "open border" therapeutic liberals (sadly some "libertarians" included) suddenly got rather friendly towards borders or at least less outraged at them for this rather politically correct usage of them. Internal borders in the EU and the US were actually erected! This recent issue notwithstanding we discuss why borders of some kind are necessary for all sorts of issues including something interesting which Glen Greenwald stated after the fall of Kabul: Leave Afghanistan for the Afghans. This has a very different vibe towards the politically correct crowd if someone said leave Sweden to the Swedes or leave Florida to the current Floridians. Why would Glen Greenwald state that statement even for the Afghanistan issue? When it comes to war without borders there is no such thing as territorial aggression or invasion. In the leadup to WWII both Stalin and Hitler operated "without borders" to their respective neighbors including Poland and the Baltic states. Most historical colonialist and empire builders, which the left hates, operated "without borders." The US government and its forces have operated without borders. Julian Assange for many years used the Ecuadorian border inside of the embassy to protect himself from Anglo-American prosecution. Hence its quite clear that without some admission of borders many of these socio political positions held by liberals, progressives, liberal libertarians and leftists make no sense. Libertarians like Hoppe can philosophically defend them merely as an extension of property rights to some degree but if one denies the existence of property/border then what does "foreign" aggression or "theft" or "invasions" actually mean? If no borders exist there is no such thing as as "foreign" aggression or invasion. There is no such thing as different clouds rather its one giant cloud. Are certain socio-ethnic groups (say smaller clouds) entitled to stay on their land? What happens when they can't defend it from a superior power? It could be power explains the what, when and why of when borders gets defended but most political theorists have a rather emotive incoherence when it comes to borders.

War and immigration are clearly linked and many mass movements of persons/groups occur after, during and before wars. As David Friedman argues if one lives in a good society one experiences immigration toward it and if one lives in a bad society one experiences emigration. This was obviously the case in West Berlin. This is also the case with the USA and its southern neighbors. Immigration done in large scale is a form of invasion as Hoppe argues. The left of course views certain immigration movements (say the settlement of North America by Europeans) as a kind of invasion. The story itself in that case is not as straightforward as they make it seem and the imperial Aztecs or Incas didn't care too much for their neighbors either! The left acted very much like and if not worse then Andrew Jackson and Marx held a rather low view or certain groups too! Mao didn't care that much for the borders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea which was carved out by US/UN/ROC troops and still defended to this day and as mentioned above Stalin physically removed and concentrated all sorts of ethnic groups around.

We also discuss the strange relationship that many liberals and leftist have with the philosophy they usually hold which is something like internationalism and universalism. Both seem to imply that their ideas (be they feminism, liberalism, 15 percent tax rate or democracy) must be in charge throughout the world. If one set of ideas is in charge everywhere there can be no competition or regional diversity in any significant area. It seems that what they (say John Dewey, LBJ, Woodrow Wilson, the Neocons, Marx and John S Mill) really want is a one world democratic state of some kind. In that society there can be no exile or "better" place to move if its been entirely homogenized.

We discuss these issues and many more in this episode. Part 2 coming next week.

Article we reference on the left case against open borders. American Affairs not current affairs as we incorrectly said. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/

Marxism is as alien as Capitalisms article. Marx actually referred to indigenous peoples like the Native Americans, Scottish highlanders, and Basques, along with hunter-gather societies and native tribes in the colonial era generally, as “non-historical peoples.”

https://attackthesystem.com/2020/08/17/revolution-and-american-indians-marxism-is-as-alien-to-my-culture-as-capitalism-2/