The problem that Steve (among many others) is unable to solve is the a priori definition of common sense.  What is the difference between illegal aliens sneaking into America to get jobs cleaning bathrooms and Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico?  To Steve Wolfer, there is no difference because he has no rationalistic premise that can place those into their proper contexts. He thinks that he owns this country, but that I do not.  If a majority of people voted for open borders, that would be illegitimate to Steve, but if they voted to close the borders, that would be right and proper.  

Marotta writes:

What is the difference between illegal aliens sneaking into America to get jobs cleaning bathrooms and Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico?

And he is concerned with my grasp of common sense?  What is the difference between a homeless man sneaking into Marotta's home to find a warm corner to sleep in, and a burgler sneaking into his home to rob him?  I don't know about anyone else but I have no problem what-so-ever seeing both the similarities (both are acts of trespass) and the differences (one is simply an uninvited guest versus the other who is engaged in outright theft).

--------------------

He [Steve] thinks that he owns this country, but that I do not.  If a majority of people voted for open borders, that would be illegitimate to Steve, but if they voted to close the borders, that would be right and proper.

I made it very clear, for those that read and think, that I recognize the concept of public ownership and that what is owned in common is managed by those we select and that we select those in government by voting.  Now  does that sound like "Steve thinks he owns the country, but Marotta doesn't"?

Does Marotta think that property rights can be violated by vote?  What about rape, if a majority of a group of men vote to rape the one woman that is there, is it suddenly okay to ignore her property rights in her body and enter it against her will? 

And the difference isn't between open borders and totally closed borders, just as the front door to Marotta's home is closed or open so as to allow him to control who has access to his property.
-------------------

Take a look at my last post and notice the arguments I made that Marotta stays silent on:
- Doesn't he believe he has a right to lock the doors on his home?
- What justification does he have for implying that those who don't support totally open borders are racists?
- Does he really believe that there are no uniquely American values?
--------------------

Progressives and many anarchists are blinded by a cult-like relationship to their theories such that they are immune to evidence and indifferent to outcomes.  Nothing can challenger their beliefs which are given a scripture-like reverence apart from logic.  It is a danger inherent in accepting floating abstractions. 

I sanctioned Steve's post in #13 a couple of days ago because I appreciated his making the time to explain his reasoning.  As much as I agreed with his approach, I disagreed with his conclusions.  My brief comments above outlined my objections and stated my own conclusions.  

Many problems worry at Steve's overarching theory of "national ownership." Steve likens the United States of America to a corporation. I point out that the shareholders of a corporation or their elected board of directors are prohited from illegal or unlawful actions, such as declaring war on Spain, or buying and selling human beings.  In fact, while many corporate charters include the phrase "... or any other activity lawful within this state" that is nonetheless a limitation in action and in place.  A corporation cannot just vote to open a branch office in a place that does not allow it.  (Banking regulations are an example of that.)  

Moreover, Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises both were suspicious of joint stock corporations. I do not find their arguments compelling, but they must be addressed. For one thing, while our political institutions are firmly based on "one person one vote" corporations grant votes based on shares owned. That, to me is reasonable, but would change how we vote in the USA and how our representatives vote in Congress. In other words, the "standard" district might have 700,000 people with some representatives having 1.2 votes and others 0.98.  We might decide that the average American pays $1300 a year in taxes and grant some people 0.1 votes and other 1000 votes.  At this point, we are no longer discussing immigration policy, but restructuring the USA.  I called that "science fiction."  It is the long and winding road that dedicated ideologues take when trying to fix all of the world's problems at once, starting with a single limited problem here and now.  

Smith and Mises also disliked the fact that corporations are credit-based enterprises. They both legitimized only those whose assets come from savings.  Again, we would have to restructure the American constitution (and the Constitution) to reconcile that problem because the Constitution allows the federal government to borrow money on the full faith and credit of the United States.

 In point of fact -- and this speaks to a deeper problem: Wolfer's lack of "boots on the ground" experience with the problems of immigration -- my wages in the Texas Military Department come from funding for Operation Secure Texas.  We guard 1300 miles of border between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico.  In addition, our Operation Lone Star is an annual medical mission, in which the Medical Rangers of the Texas State Guard deliver free treatment to communities in the border counties, serving as many as 10,000 people per day - with no questions asked.  

As Objectivists, we can ask many cogent questions about those activities, but I point out that the conservative, patriotic voters of Texas apparently support the elected representatives who have made that funding available for about 30 years. This is traditional to Texas.  And that raises a Constitutional issue that Steve Wolfer has not addressed.

The US Constitution, Art I Sec. 8 gives Congress the power to establish uniform rules of Naturalization.  Beyond that, it falls to the States themselves to regulate immigration into their own jurisdictions.  Steve Wolfer apparently takes the position that the USA is a unified, centralized nation-state in which the voters in Florida have as much say in Alaska as the voters in Hawaii do about what is proper in Maine, which ultimately denies the very concept of a federal republic of 50 states.

Steve keeps drawing analogies between my home and the USA but those analogies fail on the very point he insists: ownership.  If I have as much ownership right in the USA as Steve then I have as much right to allow in any visitors I choose -- and even choose to make them "family" members with full voting rights, if that is how I choose to run my home.  The fact is that such "Crusoe concepts" require much closer analysis than Steve has given them.

In fact (again) as much as I appreciated the efforts that Steve put into Post #13 (and some others), he ultimately failed to make a consistent case. Rather, in response, he resorted to name calling, which is typical of neo-Kantian range-of-the-moment, context-dropping muscle mystics in denial of the Law of Identity. (Just sayin'...)

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/14, 6:15am)

I don't buy the idea that citizens own "the commons", because, as I stated before, ethics derives from the need of individuals to choose how to act, to make appropriate choices. Only individuals think and choose; collectives cannot do so.  So the idea that the collective of legally recognized citizens "owns" a nation-state is not possible, since ownership is a political-ethical principle that applies to individuals only.

Also, ownership does not impart to the owner the right to over ride the natural rights of other individuals to pursue their own lives peacefully. That's not ownership; it's a coercively enforced privilege, akin to the "ownership" of a slave. People excluded from emigrating to ther US are not slaves of US citizens, but to the extent their natural right to pursue life has been overturned by physical force, then like slaves, they have been stripped of some important rights.

If citizens own something, then the object of their ownership must be precisely defined, just as precision is essentiaal to staking out claims of ownership to real and personal property. But citizens are not owners of the commons, as you use the term; they are "stakeholders", to borrow a phrase from progressives. The idea of citizen stakeholders in the commons--in which their "stakes" are imprecise, metaphorical and imposed by force--is identical to the false claims of progressives that workers have a "staake" in the company that hires them, or people in a neighborhood have the right, as stakeholders, to veto a new housing developement on land that stakeholders enjoy as open space for views, dog walking and watering, etc. 

Finally, I know you did not claim US staakeholders ought to have the power to prevent others from leaving, but I argue your premise does not exclude that position as a possibility. You argue stakeholders ought to prevent by force others from entering "their" country; and as I've shown, this is arbitary and unjust. But the injustice needn't be restricted to entrance; it could just as arbitarily be extended to encompass departures. For if the stakeholders "own" the commons, then they might decide that "their" commons would be damaged if other stakeholders moved away. That was the reasoning the communists used to prevent people from escaping the vast prison camp that was Eastern Europe and Russia. 

Mark, I'll continue to work on the issues you raised.  You wrote:

... ownership does not impart to the owner the right to over ride the natural rights of other individuals to pursue their own lives peacefully. That's not ownership; it's a coercively enforced privilege, akin to the "ownership" of a slave. People excluded from emigrating to ther US are not slaves of US citizens, but to the extent their natural right to pursue life has been overturned by physical force, then like slaves, they have been stripped of some important rights.

I believe the best way to view "ownership" is as bundle of rights - each right in the bundle is defined in terms of an action the 'owner' can exercise relative to an entity.  For example, if you buy a car, and if you have good title (the car was sold to you by the lawful prior owner).  Your ownership relates to a set of actions that you can take relative to that car.  You can drive it, you can sell it, you can modify it, you can give it away, you can rent it out, you dispose of it, etc.  All actions.  None of the actions require someone's permission - they are rights.  That whole bundle of rights constitute your "ownership" of the car.

Note that if you had leased the car, you would acquire a bundle of rights, but it would not include the right to sell the car.  Your lease would spell out what rights came to you. 

Your right to drive the car (owned or leased) does NOT include the right to run over a person, or to drive down a private road posted "No Trespassing".  I can own a gun, but that ownership doesn't mean I can shoot someone in any situation other than self-defense.  I own a house and I DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO STOP SOMEONE FROM COMING INTO MY HOUSE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.  They have a natural right to go where they want - BUT ONLY WHEN IT DOES NOT INCLUDE TRESPASS.

I can own a car.  I can not own a person.  That other person's natural rights exclude that.  When you exclude people from entering your home, you are exercising your rights and it does not violate the excluded person's rights.  They don't have the right to enter your house.

If America - the country - 'owns' its borders, the government can stop people from entering unless they are American citizens or green card or Visa holders.  People enter with permission.  If there are open borders than anyone can enter at any time and for any reason and we are forced to see borders as imaginary, of no legal consequence and would perhaps need a declaration of war to legally stop an invading nation.

I'll await your answer to my post above before going farther to establish my case for ownership of the common property of our nation by the citizens.  And then in another post relate it to borders.

Mark,

Thank you for sticking with this discussion.  I think there are some worthwhile things we can flesh out.  I haven't forgotten any of your objections or observations (like ownership of commons being restricted to those used in defense of individual rights, for example, or the lack of consent to the ownership I proposed, or the issue of ownership that appears to violate the rights of others.)  And I hope to get to each of them.  But, with your permission, I'll start by seeing if we agree on the fundamental aspects of two, inter-related, foundational concepts: The nature of ownership and the concept of rights.

Ownership first.

You acknowledge that people can own things in a collective fashion (as in shares of a corporation, joint tenants, etc.)

For each kind or category of ownership there are different rules and different laws and different understandings regarding the kind of ownership.  No one could take the rules for those actions allowed to a corporate shareholder and expect them to be the same rules for the actions permitted the joint tenants of house.  Yet they have things in common, because they are all kinds of ownership.

There is a joining of the concepts of ownership and rights - it lies in the concept of a bundle of rights relative to something, BEING what is owned.

To be philosophically precise, I believe one would NOT say that they "own" something, like a car, but rather that they have the right to take certain actions regarding that car.  Ownership shouldn't be thought of as about a thing (as in "I own this car"), but rather about rights that relate the 'owner' to the 'thing'  (as in "I own the right to drive this car") - this seems awkward, and isn't required for clear communications in most cases.  But it is valuable for philosophy and law. 

(Just a note: legal entities can 'own' things.  And the things that are owned can be physical or intellectual - as in patents or copyrights or digital entities or permissions.)

When I 'own' shares in a corporation, what I have is a bundle of rights relative to the the corporation.  Rights like, the right to sell some or all of those shares, the right to vote those shares at shareholder meetings,  the right to give the shares to any third party,  the right to collect any dividends issued while I am a registered shareholder as of the record date, etc.  What I really own is a bundle of rights. 

As is always the case, a valid description of a right is a description of an action -  an action that I can take without anyone's permission.  (And to be a valid right, it cannot violate a right of another person.)

Because these are best thought of as a bundle of rights, I can sell, or trade, some rights and keep others.  For example, I could make an agreement with the corportation to trade in a block of voting shares for non-voting shares that have a larger dividend payment.  That is the equivalent of selling the right in the bundle that lets me vote the shares. 

This bundle of rights concept is a powerful tool not just for understanding rights, property, ownership, and law... but it is also powerful in letting businesses and individuals to invent endless arrangments - more and more options available to each of us.  Prefered Stock, common stock, limited partnerships, buying a car, lease the car instead of buying, lease with option to buy, buy and then rent out to others, Uber with someone else's car, and so on, and so forth... without end.  This creativity can (and does) take place without this precise understanding of a bundle of rights being the proper way to conceptualize ownership.  But for philosophy and legal philosophy, we can get in trouble without that level of precision.

A right is always the right to take an action.  The action is always in regards to some entity.  The entity could be a house, a car, an patent on an idea, or your body.  The right is never an obligation.  Rights do not contain an obligation.  I have the right to sell my car, but I don't have to.  I have a right to drive it, but I don't have to.  We can get into a legal, contractual arrangement where we acquire both rights and obligations, but they are always separate parts even when in the same agreement.  That is because a right specifies an action, and proclaims it as an action needing no permission.

What I want to ask you, is to tell me if you disagree with any of the concepts I presented in this post.  (Or, if anything was unclear)  If not, I'll try to explain how I see it applying to government property and to answer the objections you raised.  Thanks.

Mark, we completely agree that natural rights are prior to government.  And, further, the ONLY proper purpose of government is protect those rights.  And I agree that a person's orientation regarding citizenship should be client-agent.

No person should be seen as having any obligations or duties other than those that are voluntary.  (We can voluntarily take on an obligation, like agreeing to make the payments associated with a mortgage, for example, or making a moral committment - an obligation - to care for a child.)

=== Negative versus Positive Actions ===

Note that this concept of "obligation" is only a relevant issue when it concerns positive actions, like the false assertion that we all owe a nation an obligation to spend two years of military service.  That would be a call a positive action (joining the military) that is being asserted as an obligation. 

We do have some negative obligations (obligations to not take an action).  For example, an obligation to not intiate force against another person.  We do have an obligation to not violate the rights of others because that is a logical requirement of the concept of rights.

=== Applying Positive/Negative to Government ===

The argument for or against an obligation to the government turns on the issue of individual rights.  Respecting the individual rights of others is the only obligation that we all start with at birth and can never escape.  (It is an obligation for negative actions)  It is kind of axiomatic that we can NOT choose to violate the right of others to choose.

This means that there is no logical argument against any action of a government as long as it stays strictly within the bounds of protecting rights.  We have an obligation to NOT act against the defense of individual rights - even if done by a government (no matter how much that idea pisses off anarchists).

=== Voluntary ===

1. We can't ask that others respect our right to choose while at the same time objecting to government acts that defend individual rights.

2. If there are property rights we each own in common (like a limited bundle of rights related to a federal court house) then we each should respect a government law/act to stop someone from destroying that building.

3. This is the heart of a govenment's moral authority.  If it acts to defends individual rights, it is moral.  Otherwise, it is not.

That is my argument for government restrictions on people who are not citizens of America entering the country.  We have a very limited bundle of rights as citizens in common property and the government is our agent in managing that property (we direct them by electing the people who do the managing).  Morally, they only have very limited acts they can do as agents - only those that don't violate individual rights.  Someone who is not a citizen of our country has no right to trespass.  If we are the owners of some property we have a right to prevent unauthorized access.

Hi Mark,

You wrote:

You haven't proven that there is a commons that constitutes property owned by citizens, or that self-supporting peaceful immigrants violate this ownership somehow. In fact, since people have the right to sustain and promote their lives and happiness through their own efforts, state prohibitions on their migrating to a more free and less threatening jurisdiction violates their natural right to live their lives as best they can.

What I attempted to do in post #30 was to prove that it was reasonable to see things that are managed by the federal government as a kind of property of the citizens of that nation.  I showed that there are different kind of properties that are owned in common (public corporations, partnerships, etc.) and I pointed out that different kind of ownership have different rules.

To argue AGAINST the idea that citizens of a nation own (in common) what is managed by the government (i.e., government property) is to vest in government an ownership to which I say it has no right.  Either we, the citizens, have a limited kind of ownership of all federal properties, or the government owns it and has moral right to anything it wants with it and with no regard to any individual or all individuals - that is a prescription for totalitarianism.  Or, one could say that if the government takes control of anything that all ownership rights vanish as if that property were part of some alternate universe.  That makes no sense.  I say again, I can see no logical alternative to seeing government as the agent that manages property owned, in common, by the citizens.
-----------

Now, my argument about ownership must be acknowledged (or defeated) before one can say that immigrants can into the country by right, as opposed to by permission. 

So, does government totally own all that they manage and have moral as well as legal rights to do with all of that property as they wish and with no moral or legal obligation to heed any concern of the citizens?  Or, is everything managed by the government no longer even potential property - that it is some kind of non-property type of entity to which no rights and no ownership could ever be attached or considered?
------------

If the citizens have some kind of ownership in what government manages, then it is possible for trespass to exist.  That a peaceful, self-supporting immigrant might enter your house without permission, so he might enter our country without the permisson of the owners as granted (or refused) by the manager of the property - the government.

How do you determine if a person is peaceful and self-supporting without insisting on some kind of request for immigration?  You couldn't.  You'd have to take anyone, at any time, as if you had no border at all.  And only take action after someone violated a right.  You have to say one of two things: 1) Everyone has an absolute right to enter your house, until, and unless, they are proven to be rights violator. Or, 2) Because you have a right to determine who comes into your house, they get to enter only after they have received an invitation.

People do have the right to sustain and promote their own lives and happiness through their own efforts.  States can, and do prohibit people from breaking and entering, from theft, from trespass.  Their rights do not extend to violating the rights of others.  Just because my ownership of a share of a public corporation is held in common with others does not mean that my shares, nor the property managed by that corporation is up for grabs by peaceful individuals.  And, again, if we own our nation in common, then immigrant's rights do not include the right to violate our rights.  They can't enter your house without permission, and they can't enter the nation without permission.  No one is violating the rights of someone by refusing to accept trespass.  There are people with really, really nice houses.  But no matter how much better I imagine my life would be living in their house, my wishes don't give me a right to trespass.
--------------------

You wrote:

Government can own real and personal property, such as courthouses and ships, if these are held in trust for their clientel for the purpose of defending liberty rights. This ownership can, in a sense, be construed as ownership by citizens. Citizens own those assets, held in their behalf by the government in agency relationship, according to the extent of funding that any particular citizen has provided for their acquisition and maintenance.

We agree on most of that.  The specific rules of how much is owned by who is something that legal/political philosophers will need to hash out.  I see problems with ownership being in proportion to funding, unless voting is also weighted by funding, and then the funding would have to be solely for defense of individual rights.  And it is hard to see "Equal before the Law" co-existing with differing rates of ownership.  But maybe that could be done.

Also, the legal/political philosophers will have to decide about ownership of government held property that isn't used in defense of individual rights.  I'd say that property was a form of stolen property and that ownership was still vested in the hands of those from whom the money was taken to acquire it.... all very messy - BUT it is also beside the point.

I've explained above why common ownership entitles government to regulate immigration (as it regulate the use of the federal court house).  And the individual rights being protected are their property rights in this nation.  That is not tribal.  It is not oppressing anyones rights.  Immigrants don't have a right to enter this country.
---------------------

You wrote:

But trying to lock out bad ideas is a futile rear-guard defense. The only solution is promulgating correct ideas and superior philosophy, so that somewhere, someday, good ideas win the day. That's what you're achieving with your books, and while I'm at it, thank you for your good work.

If there was some magical button that I could press and only people who believed in liberty, understood individual rights, and had our best interests at heart would be the ones to enter our country, or to vote... would I press the button?  It would be very tempting.  But that is a hypothetical based upon nonsense.  The fact is that it couldn't be done.  And the political principle that rules here is freedom of thought.  Just as bad speech should be never be prevented and fought with good speech, the same is true of ideas.  We agree with that.

The reason for restricting immigration is to permit as many people as possible to enter the country (our property), but only as long as they are still assimilating (being people we want on our property).  If too many enter in a period of time they don't assimilate.  That means that they don't become American.  They don't pick up the baton of liberty and help carry it into the succeeding generations.  That is a problem.  Liberty is only possible while there are a significant number of people who have a basic idea of what it is and vote accordingly.  Ignorance can come from abroad as well as from our universities.

I won't lay out the full arguments, but I'd suggest to you that anarchy and open borders are interwined in such a way that over time you cannot have one without the other.

And thank you for the kind words about my books!

I'll take that as a win, but no concession.  :-)