Immigration: The Damnation of Doug Burlison
The relatively unique burden of being both an anarchist and a former holder of elected political office (Second Ward Councilmember, City Council of North Kansas City, Missouri, 1996-1998 in my case) is that you have a duty of conscience to speak out even when you can “see both sides” because you’ve been there yourself.
While the national political arena offers a metaphorically target rich environment for the anti-statist critic, integrity demands not sparing the marginal cases when they come to your attention — including earnest libertarians who’ve managed to win local elections and are trying to do the right thing, if they could only figure out what that is. Certainly my own time in office was very far from perfect in its adherence to libertarian principles. I’m not the same man I was a decade ago, though. For roughly the past two years, I’ve denied that complete adherence to libertarian principle is even possible by politicians and that (as a result) it is not principle that must be thrown out the window by the libertarian movement, but electoral politics.
Libertarianism as a political philosophy tells us that immigration should be unrestricted. Here in Missouri, though, former Greene County Libertarian Party Chair and freshman Springfield City Councilmember Doug Burlison has proposed new legislation to harass migrants and their employers.
“The proposal would punish any local company found to have hired illegal aliens with a $500 fine on the first offense, a $1,000 fine on the second offense and loss of its city business license for a third offense.”
While the wording of the legislation is such that it directly only imposes fines on the employers of the innocent people termed “illegal aliens”, the effect of this would of course be pernicious interference in the ability of such innocent people to find work and provide for themselves and their families. If that doesn’t count as “harassment” in Councilmember Burlison’s view, he should contemplate the prospect of a hypothetical law imposing fines on employers who hire him.
Burlison responded to critics recently before I had gotten around to making this post. As a result, I’d like to go over it now.
“It is true that I have verbally pledged to propose an ordinance that addresses one small aspect of the current immigration problems we are experiencing in this country.”
Right off the bat, an error in thinking on the part of Burlison presents itself. I don’t know exactly who Burlison meant when he said “we“, but I doubt he has had a green card demanded of him lately or bled from blisters on his feet acquired in a deadly march across burning hot sands. From the perspective of justice and liberty, the only “problems” with immigration are the statist restrictions on it.
So why did Burlison do this (even though his fellow councilmember John Wylie called it a “moot point”)?
“This came about after being invited to speak to the local chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps about immigration issues. I spoke from the heart (and off the cuff) about my take on the screwed up situation we have found ourselves in. . .
Okay, so he’s going to talk to the Minutemen, even though he’s surely aware that they oppose open immigration. In and of itself, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly there are more than a few anti-liberty groups I’d like to have a word with myself. But, still, one has to wonder what he was thinking.
The bill of rights talks about the basic freedoms humans are born with, not just Americans, but all humans.
Okay, so he understands that all persons possess inalienable rights that are not granted by written constitutions, but hopefully recognized by them to some degree where such constitutions exist. This is a key point. Burlison knows better than to do this evil and tyrannical thing — but he’s going to do it anyway.
I would like to see our border with Mexico as normalized as our border with Canada sometime in my lifetime.
In fact, he’s even quite aware that open immigration is a desirable goal.
“Legal immigration needs to be streamlined and expedited.”
Sure. Simple. Abolish the restrictions the bureaucracy is there to administer. Of course, you can’t do that as a city councilmember, Doug. One would hope, though, that you would seek to avoid personally adding to the injustice that bureaucracy carries out, as a self-described “libertarian”.
“Welfare needs to be majorly reformed and reduced.”
Here’s where he’s getting really off track. The “illegal immigrants” Burlison seeks to persecute are not responsible for the statist welfare system of the United States government. That responsibility lies with the government policymakers and their allegedly “private” supporters. In fact, since “illegal immigrants” can’t vote, they are perhaps the people in America who are the least to blame for the statist welfare system. So why does Doug Burlison think welfare has anything to do with immigration?
“Social Security needs to be protected by a transformation to individually owned accounts, rather than collectively squandered political funds.”
Why on earth that would be an excuse to further harass people who already face legalized kidnapping by uniformed thugs and countless other difficulties and injustices is beyond me.
“The War on Drugs needs to end. The black market we’ve created finances thousands of passages through our southern border.”
Sure the War on Drugs needs to end. Doug Burlison has not claimed responsibility for the War on Drugs, though. If he ever does, I hope he renounces it as well as his contribution to the War on Innocent Brown People Who Talk Funny. That people evading one set of unjust laws are able to provide mutual aid through market mechanisms to people evading another set of unjust laws is, from a libertarian perspective, a Good Thing(tm), Mr. Burlison.
“Federal policies have made a mess of this issue, which are now having an obvious effect in our local community. Local law enforcement has at least an informal “catch and release†policy because of the confusion and lack of federal support in regards to undocumented, Spanish-speaking suspects. This has created the situation where domestic citizens are held to a higher standard of the law, while alleged illegal aliens get a pass.”
How positively egalitarian of you, Mr. Burlison, to seek to make us all equally oppressed rather than equally free. From a libertarian perspective, if an unjust law is unenforcable, that’s a Good Thing(tm). If a just law is unenforcable because of the inefficiencies of government, it is an indictment of governments monopoly of “law enforcement”. If Mr. Burlison genuinely believes that the detrimental effects of that monopoly are such a grave concern, he should (before attempting to infringe upon the liberty of others in the service of that monopoly, at the very least) resign his seat and agitate in favor of market anarchism .
Ultimately, what Burlison is going through here is the basic tension that any “libertarian” political office holder goes through. The pressure is enormous, and I can say that from personal experience, to sacrifice liberty in the interests of trying to make government work. It’s a losing battle, Doug — government doesn’t work, as Harry Browne noted. The extent that you succumb to that pressure will be the extent that you lose your own sense of integrity or “soul”. Turn away from electoral politics and toward agorism.
There’s more to Burlison’s response, but I just can’t bring myself to wade through it all line by line correcting each of the many errors in thinking it contains. Read it yourself and critique it further if you wish. All I can say now is that this is the sort of thing that makes me glad I no longer support the Libertarian Party.
Note: Title of this post inspired by Samuel Edward Konkin III’s masterful “The Damnation of Bill Bradford“.
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