I just finished another "Ozarks Virtual Town Hall," responding to the President's Saturday Morning Radio Address focusing on Immigration.
In the few minutes I had to prepare, I compared the 2004 LP Platform with the 2006 Platform, and was stunned at how un-libertarian the newer Platform had become. After 9-11, many Libertarians were afraid of appearing unreasonably pro-liberty and insensitive to public insecurity about terrorism. These Libertarians came out in favor of federal military intervention in Iraq, and suppression of liberties at home in the name of "security."
In earlier platforms, "immigration" was just another individual right, and the platform was libertarian. Now immigration is a matter of "foreign policy," that is, the "war on terror," to which individual rights must take second place.
I have compared the two platforms side-by-side here:
http://KevinCraig.us/immigration12.htm
Notice that this is part 12 of a series of webpages on immigration. It has taken that many pages to refute fascist thinking on this issue, with which too many of us have been infected.
Part 13 will be on citizenship vs. travel. This page should have been the first. The Constitution (Art I, sec. 8, cl. 4) gives power to Congress to determine citizenship requirements, not to restrict travel. For generations after the Constitution was ratified, there wasn't even any such thing as passports; people were allowed to travel freely. Most Americans today think like East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall. They think nothing about the government demanding "Your papers, please." We are no longer Americans, we are Nazis and Communists.
We need a libertarian platform on immigration that is so old it appears radically new.
No comments:
Post a Comment