Hmmm... our disagreement is probably too fundamental to discuss this practical application. You see more people doing productive work as causing a higher cost of living, whereas I see a greater abundance of production, and thus a lowering cost to labor, goods, etc. You see more expensive housing rather than seeing more people to build houses if they are in short supply. The list goes on and on. This economic and philosophic difference in our view of the value of other people is so much more fundamental than the issue of immigration in a free society that it makes the discussion of the latter difficult.
In my last reply, I had considered bringing up crime and rejected it. That's one potentially very valid objection. While we stipulated freedom from coercive support, policing the population is one cost that must be assumed, and if the cost of that is high relative to the value created by the incoming population, then it could actually be a societal negative.
I didn't bring it up because I think it incredibly unlikely that opening the door to "a million mexicans" would cause such a huge explosion of the cost of keeping criminals under control as to dwarf the huge boon coming from all the productive value that others members of such a group would create. I don't think it is simply naive of me to hold such a bare minimum of benevolence for people. (I'm not implying that you aren't benevolent, etc. I realize this was one cost among many for you and don't wish to imply that you think all Mexicans are criminals or anything like that. I just couldn't think of a way to phrase it that might not evoke that, so I thought I should explain. :-) )
But... even if it were so, that still wouldn't justify any sort of immigration control in a free nation. I realize that until this point we've only talked about the economic and social desirability of such a policy and that this is a new argument, but ultimately it is the most important one. Restricting who can move about, buy property, own businesses and do work based upon race, place of birth, etc., is just crazy. As I said in my initial reply to CJ, doing so now, while perhaps crazy, is substantially less crazy than letting the world in and taxing others for their support... but once you eliminate that situation, it would be the height of obscenity to threaten someone with violent behavior because they decided to move to L.A., buy a house, and get a job with a local computer company. This is true whether the person is from Florida or the Yukatan.
Ultimately, I'm a gentle soul, I suppose. People talk about passing laws and having policies and I'm unable to process it without a visceral image of what it consists of. It means that some guy Joe, born 200 miles south of where I live, will decide to move next door to me because he knows how to make excellent furniture with his hands, and thinks L.A. is a good market in which to sell it. Believing in immigration control means pointing a gun a Joe and threatening him if he should try. Perhaps we just grab him and send him back... until the third or fourth time he does it when we'll have to either shoot him, or at least lock him away and thus eliminate the threat, at the cost of stealing from him his humanity. Joe never hurt or threatened to hurt anyone. Because we're considering a free society, he isn't even at the risk of hurting someone indirectly and through no fault of his own through taxes levied for his benefit. He just wants to make something other people wanted and trade with them. What possible justification is there for attempting to violently stop Joe, even being willing to kill him if he refuses to be stopped? This is the form in which the question sits in my mind when I hear people talking about "longer commute times" as though there is some sort of natural right not to be incrementally slowed by Joe's car.
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In my last reply, I had considered bringing up crime and rejected it. That's one potentially very valid objection. While we stipulated freedom from coercive support, policing the population is one cost that must be assumed, and if the cost of that is high relative to the value created by the incoming population, then it could actually be a societal negative.
I didn't bring it up because I think it incredibly unlikely that opening the door to "a million mexicans" would cause such a huge explosion of the cost of keeping criminals under control as to dwarf the huge boon coming from all the productive value that others members of such a group would create. I don't think it is simply naive of me to hold such a bare minimum of benevolence for people. (I'm not implying that you aren't benevolent, etc. I realize this was one cost among many for you and don't wish to imply that you think all Mexicans are criminals or anything like that. I just couldn't think of a way to phrase it that might not evoke that, so I thought I should explain. :-) )
But... even if it were so, that still wouldn't justify any sort of immigration control in a free nation. I realize that until this point we've only talked about the economic and social desirability of such a policy and that this is a new argument, but ultimately it is the most important one. Restricting who can move about, buy property, own businesses and do work based upon race, place of birth, etc., is just crazy. As I said in my initial reply to CJ, doing so now, while perhaps crazy, is substantially less crazy than letting the world in and taxing others for their support... but once you eliminate that situation, it would be the height of obscenity to threaten someone with violent behavior because they decided to move to L.A., buy a house, and get a job with a local computer company. This is true whether the person is from Florida or the Yukatan.
Ultimately, I'm a gentle soul, I suppose. People talk about passing laws and having policies and I'm unable to process it without a visceral image of what it consists of. It means that some guy Joe, born 200 miles south of where I live, will decide to move next door to me because he knows how to make excellent furniture with his hands, and thinks L.A. is a good market in which to sell it. Believing in immigration control means pointing a gun a Joe and threatening him if he should try. Perhaps we just grab him and send him back... until the third or fourth time he does it when we'll have to either shoot him, or at least lock him away and thus eliminate the threat, at the cost of stealing from him his humanity. Joe never hurt or threatened to hurt anyone. Because we're considering a free society, he isn't even at the risk of hurting someone indirectly and through no fault of his own through taxes levied for his benefit. He just wants to make something other people wanted and trade with them. What possible justification is there for attempting to violently stop Joe, even being willing to kill him if he refuses to be stopped? This is the form in which the question sits in my mind when I hear people talking about "longer commute times" as though there is some sort of natural right not to be incrementally slowed by Joe's car.