by LexNaturalis

[Editor: As a counter-point to yesterday’s article, Lex Naturalis provides a Natural Law perspective to the immigration issue]

People interact with one another every day. All human interaction is done to achieve something and it is always something that will benefit the individual that initiated the interaction. There are no selfless deeds done in society. Everything done has an ulterior motive and this is natural. If a man does something he despises to help his wife, then he is helping himself by doing what he feels is best. If a person gives their money to the poor because of a religious belief, then they believe they are receiving spiritual rewards for their actions. No rational person can do something without considering what benefit he receives from the action being taken.

Understanding the concept of self-preservation and self-betterment is fundamental to understanding the proper role of society and government. What is the purpose of government if not to benefit the members of the society governed? People would not cede their natural rights to a governing body if they received nothing in return. In fact, a government that does not provide more for the citizen than the citizen gives up in natural rights is not only ineffective but also unjust. A just society, founded on Natural Law, will have a government that provides benefits to the citizen that he cannot attain on his own. There is no other reason for giving up your rights and becoming a citizen of a civil society. No rational man would give up his rights without receiving something greater in return; in fact, a man that would do so cannot properly be called rational.

Given that civil society serves to benefit and better the citizens of the society, it can be said that citizenship in that society is not a right. The members of the government, and the society, are not obligated to help someone just because they happen to live in close proximity to members of that society. A man who does not wish to cede his natural rights to become a member of a society has no right to receive any of the benefits of that society just as a man in a state of nature is under no obligation to trade his apple for another man’s fish despite the fact that the second man may have a strong desire for the apple.

Taking into account the aforementioned it should be understood that citizenship is not a right and membership into a society is not a right. Likewise, receiving the benefits of a society without being a member is by no means a right. This concept can now be applied to the idea of immigration. Any person that breaks the laws of a just society is in violation of Natural Law and is in a de facto state of war with that society and all members within that society. Any person who defies the laws of a nation and seeks to attain the benefits of that society is akin to a warrior seeking a tent from the camp of his enemy. A society has the right to defend its borders from enemies and a person that seeks to break the laws of that society is an enemy.

This does not mean that physical violence should be done to the illegal immigrant or that brutality should befall the illegal immigrant. It does mean that the person is living in a state of war with the society and that he should receive none of the benefits of that society. A just society would, by no means, prevent a citizen from rendering life-saving aid to an illegal immigrant, but it could prevent citizens from giving any societal benefit to that person.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.

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LexNaturalis is a freelance writer and thinker from central Pennsylvania where he lives with his wife. He promotes personal responsibility to augment personal freedom.

Immigration is one of the few places where Anarcho-capitalists disagree, but a great majority of the ones that I know tend to fall towards being anti-licensing of citizenship. Paleolibertarians such as LewRockwell.Com and the Mises Institute ted to fall towards statism when it comes to immigration, which is one of the reasons I don’t align with paleolibertarians 100%. I love the LRC, but my view on immigration falls into place when you look at the rights involved.

I don’t care where you were born or where you live. It doesn’t matter to me. Mexican, Polish, Russian and Jewish people live in my neighborhood: some first generation. They own their homes. Most of them own their homes for cash, no mortgage funded by Asian investors. I could care less how they came to this country, or even why, they’re older generation workers who proved they can work. I don’t think one of them relies on social security for their retirement, I’m certain that 3 of my close neighbors have a great amount of independent wealth.

For me, immigration boils down to the one basic human right: the right to owning property that you have maintained and made better. This right is superior to every other right, and I believe that this right covers all the other human rights out there. If you have a complete right to property, you don’t have to worry about any other rights: they’re covered.

The immigration issue gets foggy because of government’s madness over the centuries. Over time, more and more welfare systems have been put into place to transfer wealth from one group to another. Most people are xenophobes, whether they want to admit it or not. The average white anglosaxon will feel more comfortable around other white anglosaxons. The average black Brazilian who speaks Portuguese will feel comfortable around their kin of skin and language. That is how humans work. The biggest problem with xenophobia is when people wonder why another race of people are getting preferential treatment on the backs of the original group. It doesn’t matter if the skin colors are different — if there is an obvious racial or language difference, xenophobia sets in. We don’t want to pay for their laziness, their incompetence, their indifference to learning “our” culture and language. We’re sick of providing free services for those who don’t want to pay them themselves.

Yet this isn’t a cultural problem — Mexicans didn’t initially come over to America for free health care and food stamps. Millions came over to work, to make their lives better, to own a home and a car and a TV. And they did it — they virtually took over entire industries with zero preferential treatment or paternalism. The same can be said of the Poles and the Africans who came to the U.S. a generation ago — they wanted opportunity to succeed, they didn’t want guaranteed success.

Immigration is now being labeled a terrorism problem — why shouldn’t it? The ghost of terrorism is the number one reason that all governments in history have grown tyrannical and abused their citizen base; the spectre of fear created by hidden terrorist cells in your neighborhood gives many people additional xenophobia and desire to give government more power to flush them out. Yet how many people are killed by terrorists in this country, and how many people of foreign countries see us as the terrorist? The solution isn’t more force, it is more realization of the obvious: the U.S. is a monster, and we’re not attracting the good workers, anymore. We’re not attracting people who want to find opportunity, since many previously communist nations are now better opportunities for an individual to succeed without help from the State.

I openly welcome aliens: illegal and legal. We can’t fix the immigration problem until we fix two bigger problems:

1. The reduction of property rights in this country
2. The increase of welfare and paternalism in this country

Both are directly responsible for the mess we’re in today, the reason for the mass xenophobia. Both of these problems are the faults of our parents and the generation before us — the so-called heroes of freedom. The previous generation created a monster through voting for monsters; they accepted jerrymandering and division of the voting block to let the monster grow and grow. They accepted a growth in the heavy hand of centralized government because they were repeatedly scared by the ghost of various enemies, including the French and the Spanish over 150 years ago. They became complacent, and they left us this mess to deal with.

And we can’t deal with it. Our blood and our souls harbor additional hatred for those alien to us, even those who were born here and have lived here for generations as we might have. It is normal to pick up the fears our parents had, even if they weren’t blatant at expressing them. It is abnormal to resolve those fears through logic, reasoning and love. Yet I’ve done it, and I take advantage of it — there are thousands of great relationships to be built with those different than me, and if they can see the problems that have created the immigration mess, maybe we can move toward a free society again.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.