Border-Line Madness: The Art of Not Being Boxed In
By Sterlin Lujan and Daniel Hawkins.
As American bombs ravage the Middle East, terrorists initiate counterattacks, and whole nations descend into a desperate wild panic, some “anarchists” and “libertarians” have responded by reverting to their Statist and neo-conservative roots. In the roar and clamor of the explosions, these libertarians seem to have gone borderline mad over border lines.
They now vie for governments to protect and guard imaginary borders. They advocate State intervention under the pretense that “refugees” will come in and instigate more controls, more welfarism, and more Statism. This is an ironic alarmist position because it sacrifices principle and consistency for government expediency. Christopher Cantwell summed up the neo-conservative or anarcho-alarmist stance in his article Libertarianism is not a Suicide Pact:
“The fact that lawbreaking foreigners from socialist, communist, and theocratic civilizations will vote for candidates and policies wholly destructive to liberty matters not. Democracy is illegitimate, so consequences be damned. The fact that they will in large part find themselves on the welfare rolls matters not.”
Anarcho-Statist arguments like Cantwell’s assume that anarchists want the State to take care of refugees and pay their housing and living arrangements. This is a straw man argument. The pro-refugee position is a pro-people position: anyone should be allowed to move freely across landmasses, and that the initiation of force against people walking across imaginary lines is immoral and anti-humanitarian.
Borders do not exist. They never have. All that exists are people with guns trying to prevent other people from traveling. But once refugees arrive in certain regions, they should not be aided or funded by governments via tax extortion either. No anarchist argues that refugees should receive any special treatment from the State. No anarchist suggests that refugees should be “imported” by governments. Anyone who argues these positions are simply not anarchists.
The anarcho-Statists ultimately contend using border control as a strategy to create more freedom. However, using the State to violently stop people from entering certain regions in land is the opposite of engendering freedom. One does not use government force against people seeking refuge and imagine themselves as protectors and defenders of liberty. This is utter hypocrisy.
There is also this idea that the Syrians coming into the “United States” might be Jihadists prepared to blow more innocent civilians to smithereens. The facts do not support this conclusion. The majority of refugees are people who have been persecuted by ISIS/Daesh, like Shia Muslims, Kurds, Yazidis, Druze, and Christians. They do not pose a significant threat. Even if they did, the American government is employing an Orwellian vetting program before letting a single person through, which could take two years for approval (that is not to say that anarchists support this). It is also good to keep in mind one fact: refugees did not incite the attacks in Paris. The attackers were European nationals, with the possible exception of one.
Russel Berman from The Atlantic cited some telling statistics on the history of refugee terrorist violence:
“In the 14 years since September 11, 2001, the United States has resettled 784,000 refugees from around the world, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute, a D.C. think tank. And within that population, three people have been arrested for activities related to terrorism. None of them were close to executing an attack inside the U.S., and two of the men were caught trying to leave the country to join terrorist groups overseas…”
Berman’s statistics illustrate that refugees are usually harmless people seeking aid, support, and assistance after being bombed by both terrorists as well as U.S and European forces. They are just people, like everyone else, trying to make their way in life and survive. They are not wild eyed murderers, ready to kill westerners on sight. To believe that is to believe unfounded propaganda.
By succumbing to this fear and paranoia, a few self-professed “anarchists” and “libertarians” are playing into the hands of both sides of the conflict.
On one hand, it is not hard to see how the Paris attacks will factor into the political agenda of the United States government and the governments of Europe. The corpses were not even in the ground before pundits started blaming Edward Snowden and cryptography for the attacks. By playing up the danger of terrorists hiding among the population, governments can take advantage of a real tragedy and encourage millions of people into voluntarily surrendering their invaluable freedom for the sake of security. Is that what some anarchists want? More security and controls?
On the other hand, Daesh looks on with glee as Americans and European spit venomous rhetoric toward Muslims. As with civilian casualties from drone strikes, Daesh takes advantage of emotional trauma experienced by Muslims both in the Middle East and in the West. Some candidates have suggested mandatory registries and identification for Muslims, others suggesting only Christian refugees should be allowed.
Daesh wants to divide the world into their Caliphate, their burgeoning Islamic State, versus the secularized Christian world. The more Muslims feel undue hatred, the more they will turn to violence as a response. So why would so-called anarchists seek to further incense Muslims and terrorists for the sake of “liberty,” when it will cause less liberty and more causalities?
Anarchists are not neo-conservative Statists, yet that is the philosophy many of them are adopting by arguing for border security. But this position is a logical impossibility. Countries are not property of individuals. Countries are just landmasses put into symbolic form by tyrannical megalomaniacs. They are not individual pieces of property you and I own. They are delineations on maps created by a small group of domestic terrorists called politicians. Thus, anarchists cannot and will not support border control. It is antithetical to the philosophy of freedom.
Even more important than that, anarchism is a philosophy of compassion and peace, and wanting to use government to stop downtrodden people from moving across geographies undermines the philosophy. It sacrifices the love and compassion instilled by the anarchist drive for peace. Instead, it causes borderline madness.
Sterlin Lujan is a professional writer, editor, research assistant, and aspiring counseling psychologist. He runs the psychologic-anarchist.com and writes for The Art of Not Being Governed, HER Magazine, and has written a peer reviewed scholarly article for the International Journal of Reality Therapy. You can find him here: psychologic anarchist.
Yet another substanceless pro-refugee article from autistic Ancaps. You don’t want the state to provide for these people and use their votes to increase the size and scope of government? Too bad, that’s not the word we live in. Also, Islamic culture is in and of itself anti-libertarian. There’s a reason why the realistic Ancaps like Rothbard, Hoppe, Rockwell, Woods, etc. have argued against open borders.
Let me ask a simple question. Are you personally okay with using violence and hurting people who try to cross an imaginary line?
No.
But trying to cross private property borders, which would very much exist all over the place in a libertarian society where state-defined borders are indeed imaginary, YES.
More autism. It’s much more than “crossing a line”. Mass immigration from the third world has enormous implications for the future if the West and the future of libertarianism, none of them good. Bit oh wait, considering the real world consequences is “statist”, right?
So you aren’t interesting in answering a simple question?
Can you not infer things? Yes I’d be fine defending the border to protect against the Islamic hordes. Are you willing to allow Western Culture (and ultimately libertarianism) to be destroyed to fulfill your open-border fantasies?
It seems the anarchist argument would be that there should be no state (full stop) aid bringing refugees or others across. Now, if they manage to swim it, or otherwise get here on their own coin and that of voluntary sponsors then we’re all good.
Does that about cover it?
Yet another ”libertarian” article that tries to have it both ways.
On the first, the borders as they currently exist are NOT imaginary, whether we like them to be or not. As long as the concept of nations exist, borders do too.
But fine, let’s imagine that borders, from at least the anarchist point of view, are imaginary. Guess what, so is PUBLIC PROPERTY. In an anarchic society, all property is private, which means that there will be borders everywhere that are NOT imaginary. They are the borders of each individual’s private property, and no person, refugees included, has any right to enter them without express permission.
This means that “freedom of movement” or “open borders” is an entirely meaningless and non-existing concept. You cannot move “freely” if virtually all space you enter has an owner who’s permission to enter you must acquire.
Which would beg the question: how many private property owners would really be willing to welcome refugees in open arms, under the pretext that they may not be accepted by the next, and therefore will have to shack on his property and his alone?
These are questions that pro-refugee, open borders, freedom of movement “libertarians” don’t ask, because they only look at the matter from a libertarian position when it suits them. In the case of borders, they are imaginary because enforced by illegitimate governments. But in the case of land and property they suddenly accept the situation “as is” and therefore assume that people should be able to move freely.
In libertarian scenarios where borders themselves are imaginary, private property would NOT be. There would be no more “freedom of movement” for refugees to enter any private property (which would include roads) as there would a “freedom of movement” to enter someone’s house.
Also, to claim that anarchism is a philosophy of “compassion and peace” is only half right. It is a fiction to state that it is about compassion. Whether there is compassion is entirely up to the individual. There is no “compassion axiom”, only private property rights and the non-aggression axiom. If as an anarchist i want to be a hateful, uncompassionate son of a bitch that is my libertarian right.
By using a word like “compassion” and pretending it is a component not of individual preference but of anarchism itself, you are smuggling liberal progressivism into anarchism, in the way you claim some anarchists are smuggling conservative statism into it.
“Yet another ”libertarian” article that tries to have it both ways.
On the first, the borders as they currently exist are NOT imaginary, whether we like them to be or not. ”
They are not? So they are not made up and designated by politicians and drawn onto a map? Is the idea of exclusive use involved in all designations for these “borders.” And where does a “nation” exist besides in the mind as a concept? All that exists are geographical clusters of land.
Government-endorsed immigration isn’t the same as people voluntarily crossing imaginary lines; unlike voluntary immigration, it will always lead to more benefits and privileges for the refugees. If someone wants to sponsor an immigrant, by allowing the refugee to live in their home or work for them, that is fine, but government-sponsored immigration is not an anarchist position. A free society wouldn’t have government controlling borders, but it would be the individuals who would allow or disallow others to come onto their land. People shouldn’t be forced to welcome others into their country; such a position is full of statist “compassion”, though the idea is backed up by force. I don’t like government controlling borders, and want that to be left to individuals, but it is preferable to state-endorsed immigration. This article by Lew Rockwell sums up my opinion on this adequately: https://mises.org/library/open-borders-are-assault-private-property