A while back on Twitter, I asked:

Question for people who think my views on immigration are “crazy”: Would the same views remain “crazy” if I were Haitian?

Brad Trun, blogger at Libertarian Realist, wrote a direct and forthright reply.  Some will condemn him as racist, and be horrified that Brad identifies with libertarianism.  But his response to my Twitter challenge was better than the others I’ve seen.  My reply is below.  He’s in blockquotes, I’m not.

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You write:

If you were a freedom-loving
American, it would be crazy for you to advocate unlimited inflows of unskilled,
crime-prone, Affirmative Action-eligible, future Democrat bloc-voting Haitians with average IQs of 80 into your country.

Suppose, however, that I was a
freedom-loving PERSON, who cared about the freedom of Haitians as well as
Americans.  Would advocacy of open borders be “crazy” then?

Would you similarly say that a “freedom-loving white American” would be “crazy” to oppose the exile of black Americans who share the same undesirable characteristics you attribute to Haitians?  Why or why not?

Brad then sent me the following email reply, used with his permission.  I’m in blockquotes, he’s not.

Bryan,


I’m delighted to get your response.

If you
valued the freedom of Haitians and U.S. citizens equally, then I suppose open
immigration for Haitians would be justified if Haitians gained more
freedom than they subtracted from U.S. citizens.  To me, it’s an
irrelevant question.  It is not the purpose of a libertarian government to
help redistribute freedom more equally around the world.  It is to secure
the freedoms of the people under its jurisdiction.

Do you
value the freedom of Islamists to impose sharia law wherever they want?
 Presumably not, since it would be crazy to value a person’s freedom to
take another person’s freedom away.

Do you
favor more Muslim immigration into Western Europe?  The Muslim influx is
having disastrous consequences for freedom there, ranging from skyrocketing
rates of rape in Scandinavian cities to sprawling polycentric Sharia zones in
London, where drinking is banned, women must be covered, and gays can’t exist
openly. 

Would you similarly say that a “freedom-loving white American” would be “crazy” to oppose the exile of black Americans who share the same undesirable characteristics you attribute to Haitians?

No, but
Thomas Jefferson was a freedom-loving white American who favored both the
emancipation of black slaves and their deportation back to where they were
illegitimately taken from.  That opportunity has passed.  I don’t
favor forcibly exiling people unless they’ve actually committed a crime.

But the
granting of citizenship to the foreign born is the granting of positive rights
and privileges (to vote, etc.), to which the entire world population isn’t
 automatically entitled.  Being highly selective as to who gets
citizenship is an aspect of national security.  Citizenship selectivity
would be especially important for a libertarian country that exists within an
overwhelmingly non-libertarian world.

Indiscriminately
open immigration can result in rapid political and economic deterioration if
the immigrants are overwhelmingly low-IQ, crime
prone, statist, and/or culturally hostile.  Imagine that Detroit
circa 1955 — which was majority white, relatively safe, prosperous, and widely
considered to be one of the greatest cities in the U.S. — became a sovereign
city-state.  Should it have adopted a policy of open immigration?  We
don’t have to speculate about the consequences of such a policy.  It was
in place by default.  And it was catastrophic.  

My informed
speculation is that Detroit’s death spiral of rising crime, declining property
values, a collapsing economy, white flight, and depopulation would
have been averted with immigration restrictions.  Detroit today might
still be a jewel of a city.  I think you’d have to admit that it’s hard to
imagine a sovereign Detroit with selective citizenship being worse off than
Detroit today actually is.  

I’m not
saying that every city should be its own nation.  But if the people who
reside in a given nation — however delineated — value their freedom, they
should favor an immigration system that selects for a population with
compatible characteristics.

I then sent Brad the following reply.  He’s in blockquotes, I’m not.  (Except for his blockquotes of my blockquotes).

I’m
delighted to get your response.

Likewise.

If you
valued the freedom of Haitians and U.S. citizens equally, then I suppose open
immigration for Haitians would be justified if Haitians gained more
freedom than they subtracted from U.S. citizens.  To me, it’s an
irrelevant question.  It is not the purpose of a libertarian government to
help redistribute freedom more equally around the world.  It is to secure
the freedoms of the people under its jurisdiction.

If you’re a
libertarian, where does this “jurisdictions” stuff come from? 
 I’d think that the purpose of a libertarian government would be to
respect people’s freedom.  And even if you think freedom in a
jurisdiction is a priority, that hardly means it’s an absolute priority. 
In the worst case scenario, full Haitian immigration make Americans mildly less
free.  In the status quo, American immigration restrictions make Haitians
vastly less free.

Do you
value the freedom of Islamists to impose sharia law wherever they want? Presumably
not, since it would be crazy to value a person’s freedom to take another
person’s freedom away.

No. 
But keeping out all Muslims because a few of them are nutjobs is much crazier.

Do you
favor more Muslim immigration into Western Europe?  The Muslim influx is
having disastrous consequences for freedom there, ranging from skyrocketing
rates of rape in Scandinavian cities to sprawling polycentric Sharia zones in
London, where drinking is banned, women must be covered, and gays can’t exist
openly. 

I think
these tales are absurdly exaggerated.  And remember – the main victims of
expat Sharia would be far worse at home, as I explain here.

Would you
similarly say that a “freedom-loving white American” would be
“crazy” to oppose the exile of black Americans who share the same
undesirable characteristics you attribute to Haitians.

No, but
Thomas Jefferson was a freedom-loving white American who favored both the
emancipation of black slaves and their deportation back to where they were
illegitimately taken from.  That opportunity has passed. 

Taking
freed slaves and sending them back to a country they’ve never known is an
“opportunity” that’s “passed”?

I don’t
favor forcibly exiling people unless they’ve actually committed a crime.

People, or
citizens?  What’s the difference?

But the
granting of citizenship to the foreign born is the granting of positive rights
and privileges (to vote, etc.), to which the entire world population isn’t
 automatically entitled.  

Opposing
citizenship and opposing immigration are very different things.  I am
saying that the entire world population is automatically entitled to sell their
labor to willing employers, rent from willing landlords, etc.  If you
think people aren’t entitled to more, why not complain about the welfare
state instead of immigrants?

Indiscriminately
open immigration can result in rapid political and economic deterioration if
the immigrants are overwhelmingly low-IQ, crime
prone, statist, and/or culturally hostile.  Imagine that Detroit
circa 1955 — which was majority white, relatively safe, prosperous, and widely
considered to be one of the greatest cities in the U.S. — became a sovereign
city-state.  Should it have adopted a policy of open immigration?  We
don’t have to speculate about the consequences of such a policy.  It was
in place by default.  And it was catastrophic.  

What you
call “catastrophe” is, by world and historic standards, a
paradise.  Would saving Detroit have justified depriving blacks of the
freedom to live and work where they like – and whites the right to trade with
them?  No.

I’m not
saying that every city should be its own nation.  But if the people who
reside in a given nation — however delineated — value their freedom, they
should favor an immigration system that selects for a population with
compatible characteristics.

Why stop
there?  Exile aside, why not restrictions on who can have children, how
many they can have, etc?  If you say, “Those restrictions are
themselves severe abridgements of people’s freedom,” I agree.  But
then I have to add, “The same goes for immigration restrictions.“

Brad emailed me a further reply, but I’m too busy for another round. 

P.S. In the comments, please double-check that you aren’t misattributing my words to Brad, or his words to me.  Thank you.