12 Comments
Comment deleted
Feb 19Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Good to see you again, Lexi! A lot to unpack.

I'm with you an imperfect world, and that anarchists won't be able to flip the script (because anarchy can never be imposed as a top-down policy, or it ceases to be anarchy). I never advocate for a coercive -- and therefore, fake -- voluntarism/anarchism.

I think the best thing voluntarists/anarchists can do to start with, is to refuse the framework of the state's terminology for people. In natural human rights, there's no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant. A consent-based agreement between employer and employee is right by default, even if the employee is undercutting other potential employees on wages. Bargains and price competition, even in labor, are morally good as long as no fraud has occurred.

Working in tech, I'm amazed at how the industry has broken so many political borders to a large degree, as it relates to workforce. My last full-time software job was with a large team than included offices in three countries on two continents. I thought it was wonderful, even if that meant I was in wage competition with workers in less wealthy parts of the world.

I have no natural human right to my wished-for outcomes. I have no natural human right to have my terms of negotiation accepted by someone else. I have no natural human right to be "middle class." The nuance I see in Christian anarchism rests in the diversity of preferences to pursue (nonviolently), rather than a wavering on the principles. I can't, in good conscience, denounce migration-as-such or competition-as-such. Cronyism and statism, I can full-throatedly denounce, however.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Feb 20Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Feb 20Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

A lot more there! I hope this thread isn't keeping you from your own excellent articles :-)

Your general theme that not everything we do freely is necessarily Christian, is true.

Freedom to do things is Christian, but not everything a person freely chooses is Christian. I'm also sure that coercively/violently stopping people from behaving voluntarily is contra-Christ and often anti-Christ, too.

Natural human rights mean that we can try to achieve something, but not that we're entitled to our preferred result. And that is in keeping with Christianity, too. It's not Christian to insist upon a standard of living that requires other people to be denied jobs and mobility.

This is the problem especially for First World Christians. We can enjoy our high standard of living, but we can't insist that it be enforced, especially if others will be violated in that enforcement.

"Do unto others as we would have done unto us" is an incomplete moral tenet and one that I don't live by. The full Greatest Commandment from Jesus is to first recognize the love of God and then to express that to our neighbors. The starting point is never my own standards, but the basic standard of God-given dignity (from which natural human rights emerge).

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Feb 21Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

> > > Thanks for the chance to clarify my ideas.

I could "hear" you grappling with your own thoughts as you were writing. I often do the same :-)

That's what writing and speaking and other forms of expression do for us. We don't express positions that are immediately, perfectly formed; we express because to express in some tangible way is the proving grounds -- even proving it to ourselves! -- and that proving grounds is what betters our views.

I recall an old college writing instructor who said, "Your writing should be smarter than you." I knew what he meant. The act of writing and the practice of revising, editing, refining should leave you with something smarter than whatever "first drafts" spill out of us in the moment.

Rigorously reflective writing can be a quasi-dialogue we have with ourselves (another teaser for tomorrow's post!). I imagine this is why you and I enjoy writing and find it valuable, and exchanging with another person adds an extra layer of reflection and refinement. Thanks, as always, for sharing.

Expand full comment

Migration might be natural, but it is not a right - as the prophet Carlin said, there are no such things as rights. Every predator has a territory - until he becomes too weak to defend it.

Expand full comment

Ah, that's another topic: Do pre-political (a.k.a. "natural") rights exist?

I posit they do -- my first Substack from Nov. 8 gets into it a bit -- but I know it's a deep point of contention for many thinkers.

Expand full comment

I think we have a (conditional) right to go to heaven. Not sure I would call it a natural right. ;)

Expand full comment

The natural rights (as I frame the discussion) start with life, then have liberty built on that, and then property built on each of those.

As a Christian, I have no innate valid claim (a "right") to Heaven. But I hope God will bring me there :-)

Expand full comment

Read it.

My approach is a bit different -- I believe that true private property borders are, by definition, closed. I also believe that truce lines of temporary peace b/w rival warlord gangs (e.g. US, Mexico) are not borders, and so the question does not apply.

Expand full comment

Welcome, Paul! :-)

I called political borders, "imaginary lines drawn by sociopaths," so I'm not in favor of them in any meaningful sense. I also would prefer private-property-based interactions. It's why I noted that, "government immigration policy usurps the private-property rights of people who live near the political borders."

I focused more on whether the popular debate was framed fairly, with respect to free/open used to describe and define the current scenario. One intellectual battle at a time ;-)

Expand full comment

Well done. I go a step further and say we are actually being farmed by other entities, they aren't human, i can see that by the path of actions over the last 2000 years, we can go further back. It's not unlike what we do to other species with farming for food, with research on other beings, cruel stuff, and much more. When you cage something, interesting side note is that many indigenous cultures did not domesticate or cage, your cage ain't far behind. What is happening now is pretty obviously a big farming technique to control and change the face and order of a place. Same with in Europe. Those who created all the refugees in the Middle East through illegal and immoral wars, destroying countries and people's lives, then went on to claim they cared about them and brought them into Europe to destabilize and change that place quite drastically. It's still evolving. Everyone is used. The 'powers that be' are obviously done with the "west." Same with the "covid" footprint. The same is happening on our southern border, NGO's, the UN, corporations are all participating in setting up and facilitating this wild event. Most of these people are coming from destitute places such as the Congo and others. I have no beef with them in fact I've tried to speak up for all the victims of our foreign policy. How do Congolese folks, you can use other examples, get a flight to south america and then make the journey north to our border? That's a feat in itself. Once again everyone is used, care is not at the core, it's very strange farming. We shall see where it goes. In history when this has been done before the results are usually dismal with the affected country changing drastically and millions upon millions of people dying, mainly through starvation. It's an old farming technique, one you would think the targeted animal would eventually figure out. It's even more crazy that many of the targeted animals, ie humans, actively support the operation thinking they are being kind. These people have been protected for a long time and have lost their senses. Their protection may be coming to an end. They will be shocked if the results are similar to past occurrences. Did you ever see the Deagel numbers? The human being is no longer much in need for these folks. Lordy lordy what a ride... Great writing! I liked your post.

Expand full comment

There are definitely people in governments and government-adjacent organizations who are distorting incentives for people, at the very least.

Expand full comment

at the very least. it's in plain sight! wild... contract law, the powers that be follow it. gotta make it visible and then you have consent. crazy times.

Expand full comment