I met my friend and his son down at the massive (about 10 or 15,000 people) protest against Congress’s new anti-immigration bills at the federal building in Austin today.
I wish we could get that kind of turnout against the war. It seems that no one gives a shit about anything that doesn’t effect them personally. There were very few white or black folks there, and most of the them were really Reds anyway. I saw one guy with an Libertarian Party sign: “Less Government, Less Taxes, More Freedom.” Can’t go wrong with that.
98% or more of the protestors were Mexican, maybe 20% literally.(?) I know that the majority in Austin are probably pro-immigration – this is a liberal town, but not a union one – but the effort required to go stand up publicly for other people’s rights is apparently too much to ask.
Many held American flags and they periodically chanted USA!, USA!, which the local paper says was deliberate to avoid the backlash from all the Mexican flags a couple of weeks ago in California. The whole scene was pretty fun for taking place in the courtyard of the Federal Building. The only thing missing was the barbeque.
New pics for my FBI file.
I’m not going to sit here and try to hash through everybody’s different anarcho-libertarian models for how to handle immigration, except to state my own (probably none of which is very original or exiting). For ya’lls sake, I’ll try to be brief. (Update: Keeping it brief didn’t work out so well.)
If the State were abolished everything was private property, I don’t think there’d be much to argue about. Immigrants would most likely have to make arrangements with people here in the Private Properties of America to accept them. Various domestic groups would of course spring up to take the new people in: Companies, Charities, etc.
Anybody not invited is tresspassing. Easy. I figure that the market has an unlimited appetite for immigrants, so my guess is that all sides would be more or less happy with the situation.
Thing is, we have a State – The Biggest Ever Anywhere. The State claims collective ownership of roadways and such, and US governments State, local and Federal, are, as I think they should be, banned from discriminating on who uses them.
People are people, they have a natural right to travel across collective or unoccupied land and to contract with whomever they want for work, a place to live, insurance, and all the rest. Therefore, it is a crime to stop them.
Besides, what the heck do you people think, that we don’t have enough government? That the Department of Homeland Security isn’t powerful enough? That American hispanics don’t already put up with enough shit from federal thugs in their own towns?
People say things like, why don’t they go back to their own country and make it better instead of coming here? Well, they are making their country better by coming here – presumably learning a little about liberty and prosperity and then taking it back home with them.
Really folks, if you take the time to think these things through, you will find that liberty really does work. We get it beaten into our heads in government school that liberty lead to the great depression and wonderful government proved through its wonderful New Deal and Good War
