Natural rights, borders and deportations

[TruthSeeker946]

Rand suggested that the colonisation of North America was fair play because the inhabitants did not recognise individual rights. 

Therefore, if a potential migrant does not recognise individual rights, does he lose the right to enter the country?

I would suggest that migrants must pledge allegiance to individual rights and the principles of a free society, as must all residents who come of age. 
 

Any migrant who refuses to, or does so unconvincingly, would be blocked from entry. 
 

And anyone, migrant or domestic born adult, who violates those principles beyond a certain threshold would be eligible for deportation. 
 

What are the problems with this from an Objectivist perspective?

[Boydstun]

How would one know who is a potential migrant? When Rand's sister visited Rand on the USA in the '70's, Rand thought of her sister as a potential migrant, but her sister did not.

Isn't it better to have an oath acknowledging that the specific fundamental law of the US is the US Constitution with the individual rights protected therein and in context of the other parts of this law of laws? "Principles of a free society" is too vague.

What would you say to a complete unification of the USA and Mexico? The southern border would be easier to monitor. When East Germany was united to West Germany, it was the law and economic system of the West that prevailed; likewise, law of the US could become the reformed law of Mexico. Greater peace and prosperity might come to the Mexico part of the US, compared to today, especially if we repealed the prohibition of drugs to adults. The migration and trade could be just like between Texas and Oklahoma.

Do you think citizens who support individual rights, but do not mean by that individual property rights, should be deported? (If we deport enough people to Canada, I hope they don't retaliate by getting the flow of maple syrup to us cut off.) I don't think so. As long as civil liberties, such as communications free of government suppression, especially criticisms of the government and its officials, continues; the free and creative mind continues, and at least de facto recognition of property rights has a very good chance.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Boydstun

[TruthSeeker946]

56 minutes ago, Boydstun said:

How would one know who is a potential migrant? When Rand's sister visited Rand on the USA in the '70's, Rand thought of her sister as a potential migrant, but her sister did not.

Isn't it better to have an oath acknowledging that the specific fundamental law of the US is the US Constitution with the individual rights protected therein and in context of the other parts of this law of laws? "Principles of a free society" is too vague.

What would you say to a complete unification of the USA and Mexico? The southern border would be easier to monitor. When East Germany was united to West Germany, it was the law and economic system of the West that prevailed; likewise, law of the US could become the reformed law of Mexico. Greater peace and prosperity might come to the Mexico part of the US, compared to today, especially if we repealed the prohibition of drugs to adults. The migration and trade could be just like between Texas and Oklahoma.

Do you think citizens who support individual rights, but do not mean by that individual property rights, should be deported? (If we deport enough people to Canada, I hope they don't retaliate by getting the flow of maple syrup to us cut off.) I don't think so. As long as civil liberties, such as communications free of government suppression, especially criticisms of the government and its officials, continues; the free and creative mind continues, and at least de facto recognition of property rights has a very good chance.

By potential migrant, I just mean someone trying to enter the country. 
 

I'm not sure about unification with Mexico. I don't know enough about the cultural differences and tensions. I am British. 
 

But the key part of my point is about rights. 
 

If the government has a duty to protect individual rights and those who do not recognise individual rights are: 

 

1. A threat to individual rights 

2. Forfeit their own rights. 
 

does it not follow that the foreigner loses the right of entry and the government has the right to block entry?

 

Yes I agree with your point about the constitution. Pledging allegiance to the principles properly expressed in a constitution. 

[Boydstun]

I'd think we should leave people alone unless they violate rights in their actions, such as in force or fraud. We wouldn't want to refuse entry and staying here to just everyone who will not acknowledge individual rights in their ideology. There are libertarians who support liberty by various versions of utilitarianism, and they argue against there being such a thing as individual rights, although, in practice they respect such rights. 

We used to have people wishing to immigrate into the US wait on Ellis Island until they had a sponsor to enter the US. Maybe it is still like that. I don't know, but that would be all right with me. My husband's grandmother was like that. She had come over by herself from Germany. She was able to get off the island when a Jewish lady in New York came down and picked her to become her cleaning lady.* 

I have an old joke for you. A little old woman on Ellis Island was asked by the official "Do you support the overthrow of the US government by force or violence?" She thought a bit, and she replied "force."

Welcome to Objectivism Online.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Boydstun

[DavidOdden]

A person has the right to act according to his own judgment, as long as he respects the rights of others. Therefore, a person can sell knives for a living, even though knives can be used by others to stab the innocent. It is only right that the government prevent the initiation of force. Selling knives is not initiation of force, nor is moving from Nevada to California, nor moving from Canada to the US.

The idea that everybody, both migrants and natural born residents (who have come of age), should swear a loyalty oath is squarely at odds with Objectivist ethical principles, and is not even required in fairly oppressive states, except perhaps North Korea and Khmer Rouge Cambodia. It is also quite ineffective: forcing people to lie about their beliefs does nothing to protect a society from initiation of force. It is in fact the initiation of force itself – force will be used to block you from entering or remaining if you do not sign the loyalty oath. My rights, to engage in lawful business relations with people from outside the US (who come here to do that business), have been violated by the government. Those who enact such law themselves are initiating force, and must by law be expelled from the country.

The problem with deportation for rights-violators “beyond a certain point” is the vagueness of what that point is. Assuming that we have a system of rational laws limited to only punishing violation of rights, there is a technical-implementation question regarding what is the proper punishment for theft or murder. Incarceration is the obvious punishment to impose, exile is not likely to be effective in a free society, but if we erect an impenetrable barrier around the US and carefully monitor entry into the US… we’re back to where we started.

[human_murda]

10 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

domestic born adult, who violates those principles beyond a certain threshold would be eligible for deportation. 

To where?

[Doug Morris]

It is reasonable to have a loyalty oath as a requirement for citizenship/voting, but not as a requirement for entering or remaining in the country.

 

[DavidOdden]

1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:

It is reasonable to have a loyalty oath as a requirement for citizenship/voting, but not as a requirement for entering or remaining in the country.

What difference does citizenship make? Perhaps you mean that only citizens can vote, but you would still need to justify that restriction. We sort of have a reasoned age restriction on voting, to prevent the 4-14 year old voting block from outlawing spinach. I just want to see why a loyalty oath is a reasonable requirement for exercising the right to vote; and if there are further consequences of citizenship, we'd need to see why a loyalty oath is reasonable for that purpose.

[tadmjones]

Assuming the anti spinach bloc is a bit tongue and cheek, it does point to the question of whether or not universal suffrage is a political scheme in the service of the protection of individual rights.

Democracy was never really as prized as ‘modern’ rhetoric has it. Jefferson , Madison , and Hamilton and others were not ‘fans’.

[Doug Morris]

20 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

Perhaps you mean that only citizens can vote

Yes.

Since voting affects what sort of government we have, we need to be careful about who we allow to vote.

 

[tadmjones]

How does voting affect what sort of government we have, do you mean voting for the officials or the majority rule 'rule' of legislation passage , are they equivalent ?

[DavidOdden]

33 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

21 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

Perhaps you mean that only citizens can vote

Yes.

Since voting affects what sort of government we have, we need to be careful about who we allow to vote

Although one often hears of a “right to vote”, that’s a concept that I think needs to be fleshed out quite a bit more. If we simply deny that there is any such “right to vote”, then rights do not hinge on taking a loyalty oath, and “citizenship” is conceptually redundant, it simply stands for the idea that some some people can vote, others cannot.

In terms of "what are we voting for", I argue that this only refers to the selection of law-making ~ enforcing officials. For example, the senators. It's not at all clear that a popularly-elected "chief executive" is desirable, and it's kind of clear that many elected officials are undesirable. A good case is to be made that changes to the constitution itself should also be subject to a vote of the people as well as the senate.

The question of whether the general rule for enacting legislation should be "simple majority" vs. super-majority is not entirely obvious, but insofar as new legislation ought to be extremely rare, there should be more than a "preponderance of support" for new laws. Unanimity would probably be overly burdensome, in case a wingnut accidentally gets elected.

 

 

[tadmjones]

Sometimes wingnuts are just the thing you need.

[TruthSeeker946]

On 6/26/2023 at 3:58 PM, DavidOdden said:

A person has the right to act according to his own judgment, as long as he respects the rights of others. Therefore, a person can sell knives for a living, even though knives can be used by others to stab the innocent. It is only right that the government prevent the initiation of force. Selling knives is not initiation of force, nor is moving from Nevada to California, nor moving from Canada to the US.

The idea that everybody, both migrants and natural born residents (who have come of age), should swear a loyalty oath is squarely at odds with Objectivist ethical principles, and is not even required in fairly oppressive states, except perhaps North Korea and Khmer Rouge Cambodia. It is also quite ineffective: forcing people to lie about their beliefs does nothing to protect a society from initiation of force. It is in fact the initiation of force itself – force will be used to block you from entering or remaining if you do not sign the loyalty oath. My rights, to engage in lawful business relations with people from outside the US (who come here to do that business), have been violated by the government. Those who enact such law themselves are initiating force, and must by law be expelled from the country.

The problem with deportation for rights-violators “beyond a certain point” is the vagueness of what that point is. Assuming that we have a system of rational laws limited to only punishing violation of rights, there is a technical-implementation question regarding what is the proper punishment for theft or murder. Incarceration is the obvious punishment to impose, exile is not likely to be effective in a free society, but if we erect an impenetrable barrier around the US and carefully monitor entry into the US… we’re back to where we started.

How is it squarely at odds with objectivist ethical principles? Could you elaborate? 
 

There are no rights violations against people who do not recognise individual rights according to Rand. 
 

Regarding your vagueness point, that problem arises frequently in the application of law. It's so easy to talk about ethical principles, but much harder to draw the lines in law. 
 

We could talk about the vagueness of when a child becomes an adult, or the expiration of a patent, or the appropriate punishment for theft, or what constitutes causation, or what constitutes reasonable doubt and so on... All difficult, all debatable, no different to setting the threshold for deportation.

[TruthSeeker946]

On 6/26/2023 at 8:43 PM, Doug Morris said:

It is reasonable to have a loyalty oath as a requirement for citizenship/voting, but not as a requirement for entering or remaining in the country.

 

Why not? 
 

Why do people who do not recognise individual rights have the right to enter the country?
 

Someone who does not recognise individual rights is clearly a threat to those that do, and the purpose of government is to protect the rights of those that do. 
 

This is merely an extension of your point about voting. If we ought to be careful about who we allow to vote, we ought to be careful about who we let into the country. 

[TruthSeeker946]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:58 PM, human_murda said:

To where?

Anywhere, it doesn't matter. Pushed beyond the boundary of the country with guns pointed at him. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by TruthSeeker946

[DavidOdden]

43 minutes ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

How is it squarely at odds with objectivist ethical principles? Could you elaborate?

The essence of Objectivist political ethics is that the function of government is to prevent the initiation of force, meaning that human interactions are based on reason. Every person has the right to pursue his life according to his judgment, as long as he does not initiate force. A corollary of these principles is that holding or expressing a disagreeable position does not constitute the initiation of force. You will notice that although Rand properly vilified leftist and rightist dictatorial views, she also opposed government mind control, indeed it is a central premise of Objectivism that the mind cannot be forced. The proper response to the expression of a vile philosophical idea is not force, it is reason: counter-argument.

[TruthSeeker946]

1 hour ago, DavidOdden said:

The essence of Objectivist political ethics is that the function of government is to prevent the initiation of force, meaning that human interactions are based on reason. Every person has the right to pursue his life according to his judgment, as long as he does not initiate force. A corollary of these principles is that holding or expressing a disagreeable position does not constitute the initiation of force. You will notice that although Rand properly vilified leftist and rightist dictatorial views, she also opposed government mind control, indeed it is a central premise of Objectivism that the mind cannot be forced. The proper response to the expression of a vile philosophical idea is not force, it is reason: counter-argument.

Preventing the initiation of physical force includes preemptive action. 
 

Taking preemptive action against savages even if they have not yet initiated force seems perfectly reasonable to me.
 

Considering what Rand said about the colonisation of North America, I find it hard to believe she would disagree. 
 

It seems extremely unlikely she would be in favour of open borders and the consequent millions of irrational savages pouring into the country. 
 

I am using savage in the same way she did i.e an irrational brute who does not recognise individual rights and is willing to use force to achieve his ends. 
 

Please address Rand's point about people who do not recognise individual rights having no rights themselves. If this is true, no rights are being violated by blocking the foreigner's entry (assuming the foreigner does not recognise individual rights). 

[Boydstun]

2 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

Preventing the initiation of physical force includes preemptive action. 
 

Taking preemptive action against savages even if they have not yet initiated force seems perfectly reasonable to me.
 

Considering what Rand said about the colonisation of North America, I find it hard to believe she would disagree. 
 

It seems extremely unlikely she would be in favour of open borders and the consequent millions of irrational savages pouring into the country. 
 

I am using savage in the same way she did i.e an irrational brute who does not recognise individual rights and is willing to use force to achieve his ends. 
 

Please address Rand's point about people who do not recognise individual rights having no rights themselves. If this is true, no rights are being violated by blocking the foreigner's entry (assuming the foreigner does not recognise individual rights). 

TS,

Exactly where did Rand write or even voice the idea that people who do not recognize individual rights have no rights themselves?  I don't recall such a thing. Additionally: What Rand thought follows from the essentials of her philosophy does not relieve one from the responsibility of thinking out for oneself what follows from the essentials of her philosophy and how so. And it does not relieve one from the intellectual responsibility of independently assessing whether the consequent is true and right, which is a perfectly good thing to discourse on here.

If one is not acting in immediate self-defense or invoking subsequent action by the law for retribution against someone who has actually initiated force against one, then using force (through law or otherwise) by way of preemption is itself an initiation of force. That was Rand's view and it is widely shared wisdom won by long bloody history.

You guys let T.S. Elliot immigrate to your country. Freud also. Eliot turned RC. Might he have been fixing to help the Irish Republican Army? Might a Jewish guy like Freud join a communist cell bent on violent overthrow the government and its protection of the institution of private property in your country? Casting immigrants into your country as threats to keeping you free of force can become very irrational. Such would be not only the two farcical fancies I just mentioned. Blanket casting of people from certain countries or of certain religions as such threats is also irrational and unjust.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What is your attitude toward immigration? Doesn’t open immigration have a negative effect on a country’s standard of living?” This is Rand's answer to that one (1974):

Quote

You don’t know my conception of self-interest. No one has the right to pursue his self-interest by law or by force, which is what you’re suggesting. You want to forbid immigration on the grounds that it lowers your standard of living — which isn’t true, though if it were true, you’d still have no right to close the borders. You’re not entitled to any “self-interest” that injures others, especially when you can’t prove that open immigration affects your self-interest. You can’t claim that anything others may do — for example, simply through competition — is against your self-interest. But above all, aren’t you dropping a personal context? How could I advocate restricting immigration when I wouldn't be alive today if our borders had been closed?

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Boydstun

[Doug Morris]

5 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

Why do people who do not recognise individual rights have the right to enter the country?
 

Someone who does not recognise individual rights is clearly a threat to those that do, and the purpose of government is to protect the rights of those that do. 

People should not be subject to restrictions on their rights unless they actually commit or attempt a violation of rights.  Simply advocating wrong ideas should not be punishable.  As Rand said, the way to fight bad ideas is not with suppression but with better ideas.

   

[Doug Morris]

We need to be cautious about classifying people as "savages".

 

[DavidOdden]

4 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

Preventing the initiation of physical force includes preemptive action. Taking preemptive action against savages even if they have not yet initiated force seems perfectly reasonable to me. people who do not recognise individual rights having no rights themselves

The problem is that you have demonstrated by your words that you do not recognize individual rights, therefore you do not have rights and we can use preemptive physical force against you, because you are a savage. Alternatively, the problem is that you haven’t included a sufficiently objective epistemological basis for deeming someone to be a savage brute. Rather than subjectively declaring it to be self-evident that a certain act is initiation of force (whereby I get to condemn you as an aggressor and you get to condemn foreigners as aggressors), we should determine “what constitutes proof that a person has initiated force?”. A more subtle question is, “what constitutes initiation of force?”. Since the precogs are fallible science fiction, we have to judge based on objective evidence, not direct inspection of a person’s mind. What action has a foreigner, or resident, taken that proves that he has no respect for individual rights?

[Eiuol]

9 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:

Please address Rand's point about people who do not recognise individual rights having no rights themselves.

She did seem to think that, in her view, irrational savages are people who are at such a primitive level that trade and rational interaction is impossible. There are problems with that view, but she was talking in the context of the first Europeans visiting North America, not the reverse where "primitive" people would visit the advanced civilization. And besides, the immigrants you are talking about, no one is thinking of them as primitive savages like tribes in the middle of the Amazon. Rational or not, immigrants south of the border in the US aren't even the kind of people Rand was talking about. 

[TruthSeeker946]

14 hours ago, Boydstun said:

TS,

Exactly where did Rand write or even voice the idea that people who do not recognize individual rights have no rights themselves?  I don't recall such a thing.

 

 

In Counterfeit Individualism, she said: 

"one man cannot claim the moral right to violate the rights of others. If he denies inviolate rights to other men, he cannot claim such rights for himself, he has rejected the base of rights." (Emphasis my own). 

In Man's Rights, Rand describes "rights" as the "logical transition" between the "moral code of a man and the legal code of a society" and that they "protect individual morality in a social context" 

Therefore, it's quite clear that Rand held that a rational mind which recognises the requirements of man's nature and its proper application in a social context is the prerequisite to claim individual rights.

Regarding indigenous Americans, she said: 

"Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights – they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures" – they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using."

So even though they mixed their labour with the land, they still had no right to it because they did not recognise the concept. 
 

Rand frequently referred to irrational humans as "creatures", "savages", and I think she used the term "sub-human" or "semi-human" 

In The Missing Link, she said:

"But the development of a man’s consciousness is volitional: no matter what the innate degree of his intelligence, he must develop it,  he must learn how to use it, he must become a human being by choice."

i.e those that do not, are not human, or at least not fully human. Only human beings can claim rights.

To summarise, it's pretty clear that Rand did not believe that individual rights are automatically granted by one's mere existence. Like any claim to something, there are prerequisites which must be satisfied. In the case of rights, the prerequisites are a sufficiently rational human who recognises the requirements of man qua man and understands and accepts the application of those requirements in a social context. Only then can he claim individual rights for himself. 

Regarding her off the cuff comment about immigration - her only mention of the issue - she is referring to the impact of immigration on living standards. That is wholly different to the impact on rights themselves I.e the basis of a free society. And regarding her last sentence, I am not advocating closing borders, only controlling them. 

Edited June 29, 2023 by TruthSeeker946

[TruthSeeker946]

12 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

The problem is that you have demonstrated by your words that you do not recognize individual rights, therefore you do not have rights and we can use preemptive physical force against you, because you are a savage. Alternatively, the problem is that you haven’t included a sufficiently objective epistemological basis for deeming someone to be a savage brute. Rather than subjectively declaring it to be self-evident that a certain act is initiation of force (whereby I get to condemn you as an aggressor and you get to condemn foreigners as aggressors), we should determine “what constitutes proof that a person has initiated force?”. A more subtle question is, “what constitutes initiation of force?”. Since the precogs are fallible science fiction, we have to judge based on objective evidence, not direct inspection of a person’s mind. What action has a foreigner, or resident, taken that proves that he has no respect for individual rights?

Fair points, I agree it's difficult to draw the lines, but that is the nature of the law. This problem arises in every area of the law. 
 

There could be the reasonable assumption that those who cannot positively articulate a rational morality and its social application (i.e rights), pledging loyalty to those principles, can be presumed not to recognise individual rights. The burden of proof would be on them. 
 

But it is a secondary issue. Before it is even considered, one must accept that: 

1. Those that do not recognise rights cannot claim them for themselves. 

2. Blocking the entry of foreigners who do not recognise individual rights is a legitimate function of the government.

Edited June 29, 2023 by TruthSeeker946