Mike Vanderboegh recently relinquished support for Rand Paul because of Paul’s stance on immigration. Rand Paul is basically an open borders advocate. Mike also calls himself a Christian libertarian.
I wouldn’t propose to speak for Mike, and he wouldn’t want me to even if I could. Mike can speak for himself. But I also consider myself both an opponent of open borders and a Christian libertarian. How then can I take the positions that I do and be consistent?
I have long opposed Rand Paul because of his stance on the border and immigration, and the only Senator I find to be clearheaded on this issue (thus far) is Ted Cruz (and to some extent Mike Lee (to some extent because I need to know more about him). To the extent that Ted Cruz repudiates my ideas in the future, I will oppose him. But his views on immigration are far stronger than Paul’s views. It’s one reason why John McCain and Lindsey Graham hate him so much.
But before we deal with immigration, let’s deal with broader doctrines like libertarianism and what I do and don’t believe. Let’s deal with the issue of legalization of drugs and one example. While as a Christian I should say that I care about my readers concerning their spiritual and physical health, from a legal standpoint I don’t care one whit what you put into your body. That’s from a theoretical standpoint.
Now for the practical side of things. If you want to legalize drugs of all kinds, then be my guest, right after you turn around socialized medicine and forswear forever my fiduciary responsibility for support for any drug addict or funding of their medical care. While my hard earned money is confiscated by the power of a badge and gun to support people who will not support themselves, then those people (the recipients of my money) should expect me to be involved in their lives. My involvement will be as obnoxious and overbearing as I can possibly make it – right up until you no longer want my involvement, and then at that point I will assume you no longer want my money either. I’m good on both accounts. Leave me alone and I will leave you alone to do what you want.
This relates to immigration and migrant workers in the following way. Migrant workers who “do jobs that no one else will do” are a cost to me and other ratepayers and taxpayers that the employer won’t pick up. When these workers get sick they go to the emergency room, and my insurance premiums pick up the tab. When these workers have automobile accidents without insurance, my premiums pick up the tab. And when these workers refuse to pay taxes, I have to pay more.
You see, the existence of migrant workers is a subsidy to corporations, a form of corporate welfare that I pay. I don’t want to pay welfare to corporations any more than I do to individuals who won’t work. True libertarians don’t advocate for open borders and then ask me to pick up the tab for the workers. That’s fake libertarianism, and it proves that the one who advocates it is a farce and hypocrite. If you want to go libertarian, then go libertarian. Don’t go half way. Otherwise you’re just a liar.
There is a larger issue for the border. I have advocated for Marines being deployed on the Southern border with arming orders and robust rules of engagement. I see no contradiction here either, just as I advocated robust rules of engagement for Soldiers and Marines in combat in the various campaigns in which we find ourselves. Leaving aside what one thinks about the campaigns, to deploy men in harm’s way for the purpose of nation building is immoral. Iraq and Afghanistan were campaigns fought by the social planners (Afghanistan more so than Iraq).
But as long as there are thousands of transportation routes across the Southern border and as long as we are seen as one gigantic trans-American economy, there will be no border security regardless of what we do on the other parts of the border. No party appears to want the close the borders. Not the Democrats (it means votes to them), not the GOP (they are in bed with the corporate executives), and no even the so-called libertarians.
Marco Rubio, the erstwhile savior of the GOP, has weighed in on immigration.
In a Spanish-language interview Sunday with the network Univision, Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading Republican on the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform group, made his strongest statement yet that legalization of the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants must happen before any new border security or internal enforcement measures are in place, and will in no way be conditional on any security requirements.
“Let’s be clear,” Rubio said. “Nobody is talking about preventing the legalization. The legalization is going to happen. That means the following will happen: First comes the legalization. Then come the measures to secure the border. And then comes the process of permanent residence.”
And thus Rubio is advocating adding millions of new socialists to the voting rolls. As I have explained before:
“For historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology. Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations.”
One of the reasons for this reflexive alignment with leftism has to do with the the mid-twentieth century and what the Sovient Union and allied ideologies accomplished. South and Central America was the recipient or receptacle for socialism draped in religious clothing, or in other words, liberation theology. Its purveyors were Roman Catholic priests who had been trained in Marxism, and they were very successful in giving the leftists a moral platform upon which to build. This ideology spread North from South and Central America into Mexico, and thus the common folk in Mexico are quite steeped in collectivist ideology from battles that were fought decades ago.
Neocons like Krauthammer are liars. The Mexican immigrant doesn’t naturally vote conservative. He naturally votes collectivist. So don’t expect me to advocate adding more collectivists to the voting rolls. It runs contrary to my world view.
And it runs counter to Christian libertarianism. That phrase accurately describes me, but not completely. I am a consistent Christian libertarian. That means that neither Ron Paul nor his son Rand Paul cannot trot out the rubric libertarian and expect me to fawn over them just because they want to return to the gold standard (and I do too), or do away with certain government programs and departments (I do too). Flooding the country with more collectivists won’t do their own cause any good, but they’re too stolid to admit it.
As for Rubio, he is a progressive and collectivist, and his career is over except for the extent to which he allies himself with his natural friends, i.e., other collectivists. As for me, I take my advocacy seriously. Don’t expect giggles and grins from me because you simply say a few nice words. I won’t whore my advocacy out to the lowest bidder.
So you lie to the people, rulers one and all. Let the foreign nationals and socialists cross the border with impunity. But as long as they transport their damn gangs across the border, I’ll keep my guns.
