> A LETTER TO PAT BUCHANAN
> by L. Neil Smith <lneil@lneilsmith.com>
> Exclusive to THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE [subscription info at end below.]
>
> Dear Pat,
>
> Despite Spider Robinson's heartwrenching advice to the contrary, I
> once changed the master brake cylinder on my wife's 1969 Volkswagen
> Beetle.
>
> (Stick with me, here, I'll be making my point directly.)
>
> Although I'm a pretty good gunsmith, I don't know much about cars, so
> I was very careful to follow each instruction, step-by-step, and make
> sure I'd done it right, before going on to the next item on the list.
>
> The operation was a success. We drove the old Bug for a long time
> when our daughter was a baby, before we retired it to the garage --
> having bought ourselves a Subaru -- intending to restore it sometime
> in the 21st century as Baby's First Car. She's 12 now, and can hardly
> wait.
>
> Now I can't say for certain -- remember I said that I don't know much
> about cars -- but I suspect that if I'd followed another, very
> different procedure, none of the three of us would be alive today,
> and I wouldn't be writing this. What procedure is that? Just follow
> every _other_ instruction, items 1, 3, 5, 9, and so on, to the
> letter. But do the exact opposite of whatever is called for by items
> 2, 4, 6, and 8.
>
> You could pretty much destroy a computer system that way, too, I
> guess.
>
> Or a nation.
>
> What brought this to mind is an item that a dozen folks "clipped" and
> e-mailed to me from the Tuesday, January 22 _WorldNetDaily_. It was
> written by you, Patrick J. Buchanan, and I've got to tell you, Pat,
> in a World and on a Net brimming over with Daily stupidity, your
> piece takes a solid gold medal for clear evidence of evolution in
> reverse.
>
> In your column, after saying what you probably thought were a bunch
> of nice things about libertarians and libertarian thought (only in
> those areas, of course, where we happen to agree with you), you turn
> suddenly and accuse them -- us -- of being the source of just about
> every social and political evil since the Paleolithic Era. Why?
> Because "we" believe in, and advocate, open borders and unrestricted
> immigration.
>
> The idea (I suppose you'll insist on calling it that) is that by
> somehow encouraging a massive, uncontrolled influx of vile, unwashed
> foreigners, we libertarians have caused the welfare rolls, the crime
> rate, and the "need" for government "services" to expand explosively.
> By advocating geographical freedom, you charge, we're actually
> causing government to grow, costing everybody a lot of money and
> diminishing their liberty. Hence your snappy title "Does
> Libertarianism Lead to Statism?"
>
> Naturally, a great deal of what you have to say about this rests on a
> bizarre, and almost certainly bigoted premise, unwarranted by facts
> or logic, that newcomers to this country are all ineducable, that
> they can't be reached by those who value individual liberty (or
> whatever it is you think you're in favor of), and that it's
> inevitable and immutable that, from now until the end of time,
> they'll only vote for left-wing collectivists (as opposed to
> right-wing collectivists like you). I've seen these arguments before,
> of course, invariably supported by twisted statistics worthy of a
> Sarah Brady or a Charles Schumer.
>
> What it sounds like to me is a typical Republican excuse for not even
> going to the effort of trying to reach the immigrant heart and mind.
> The idea (before one even starts considering the flimsy factoids and
> specious logic) begs an all-important question Tonto asked the Lone
> Ranger at a moment when they were surrounded by hostile redskins
> intent on collecting scalps. Kemo Sabe asked him, "What are we gonna
> do?"
>
> "What," Tonto replied, "do you mean _we_, paleface?"
>
> You see, Pat, I'm part of that "we". I was there. I remember the
> Libertarian Party being all over the place on open borders and free
> immigration, at the national level, where I served on a couple of
> platform committees during the most formative period in the party's
> history (a time when it was dominated by one of the think tanks you
> mention in your piece), and at the state level, where I vividly
> recall arguments that deteriorated into inadvertent spitting and
> outright screaming.
>
> What sticks with me most of all is that, influenced by Rothbard and
> LeFevre, and following the Non-Aggression Principle, I advocated open
> borders and immigration restricted only in that there should be no
> welfare of any kind -- including public education -- waiting for
> newcomers when they arrived on these shores (or river banks, as the
> case may be). Not that I believed this would reduce the influx. The
> idea that people come here for handouts is no more than a
> cryptoracist myth.
>
> Ask the immigrants, yourself.
>
> People come here, Pat, more and more mistakenly, for political and
> economic freedom, the opportunity to better themselves by seeking
> work vastly more arduous than most native-born Americans are willing
> to accept.
>
> But I digress. You're right, some libertarians enthusiastically favor
> open borders. But others enthusiastically do not. Sadly, the
> principles for which I fought for were rejected -- vehemently -- by
> many of the leading libertarian lights of the day. That's just one of
> a great many reasons that I left the LP to write books about genuine
> libertarianism.
>
> Failing to make a case against libertarians or the ideas you claim we
> all share (on a bet, Pat, I could have done better), you then try a
> Stupid Politician Trick. Having pointed out the ways we agree with
> the GOP (which makes us Fine and Noble), you then ask why we agree
> with Democrats on the issue of immigration (which makes us Nasty and
> Mean). Specifically, you mention "Big Government liberals like
> Clinton, Gore, Daschle and Kennedy", saying that we stand
> shoulder-to-shoulder beside them.
>
> Guilt by association, from you, of all people.
> Fact is -- and you know it, Pat -- it's irrelevant and accidental
> that the Party of Government A, the Democrats (as opposed to the
> Party of Government B, the Republicans) agrees with many libertarians
> about the issue of open immigration. Even a broken clock -- of the
> analog kind -- is right twice a day. In any case, your precious
> Republicans have abandoned the Constitution and scuttled the Bill of
> Rights. To my point of view, that makes them a lot more like a broken
> _digital_ clock.
>
> Back to basics. Let's overlook the pathetically obvious fact that
> libertarians are in charge of none of the areas of national life that
> you accuse us of having screwed up -- nor have we ever been -- and
> that nobody ever listens to libertarians where matters of policy are
> concerned.
>
> If we libertarians were in charge of things, Pat, there would _be_ no
> welfare state, no social "services" to expand explosively, all of
> which are blatant violations, not only of the underlying principles
> of libertarianism, but of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, as well.
> The crime rate would be lower than that of the 19th century for the
> same reason it's fallen in double digits in places like Florida, and
> lowest of all in Vermont. There would be no prohibition -- nor even
> any regulation -- of the acquisition, ownership, and defensive use of
> weapons.
>
> Look what we have, instead. Libertarian Instruction Number One --
> open immigration -- is followed, albeit by default, because nothing
> in the world (the Great Wall of China was complete bust, Pat, and so
> were Hadrian's Wall and the mighty Maginot Line) can stop it from
> being followed.
>
> But then Libertarian Instruction Number Two -- "Thou Shalt Not Steal
> Other People's Money and Give It to Third Parties" -- is trashed.
>
> Libertarian Instruction Number Three -- the idea that people should
> enjoy complete freedom of association, especially in the workplace,
> where they should be free to work at any job they're qualified for,
> and employers should be free to hire anyone they like -- gets obeyed
> for the same reason Libertarian Instruction Number One does.
>
> But then Libertarian Instruction Number Four -- the notion that folks
> should be free of harassment and violence from jackbooted thugs
> stalking them because (just as your ancestors did, Pat, having
> decided that the Auld Sod offered them no more future than my Polish
> ancestors were offered by remaining some genetically depleted
> Cossack's serf in the Old Country) they decided to try and improve
> their lot in life, and the lot of their children, by stepping over
> some imaginary line created by the mortal enemies of improving one's
> lot in life -- is violated.
>
> I could go on, Pat, but by now the point should be clear, even to
> you. These libertarian instructions work in _series_, not in
> parallel. And, as Robert A. Heinlein informed us, "Bilge one, and you
> bilge them all". Don't accuse libertarians or libertarian ideas of
> having screwed things up, Pat, unless you implement each and every
> one of those ideas correctly -- or better yet, get out of the way and
> let libertarians do it.
>
> Most instructive, Pat, is the whimpering you do over the damage you
> say open borders are doing to your poor party. The way you put it --
> "Thus does mass immigration not only lead to endless enlargement of
> state power, it points to permanent minority status for any party of
> limited government" -- attempts to smuggle in a few ideas you haven't
> supported logically or factually, or course, but we've gotten used to
> that.
>
> To begin with, you haven't made the case that immigration leads to an
> increase in state power, so you simply don't deserve a "Thus" or a
> "therefore". You also imply that Republicans are a party of limited
> government, and that libertarians should worry about endangering its
> hopes.
>
> What hallucinatory concoction gave you the notion that genuine
> libertarians have any interest whatever in advancing the fortunes of
> the party of Nixonian wage-price controls, the War on Drugs, the
> Brady Bill, the adequate magazine ban, and recently the destruction
> of due process in the name of "antiterrorism", and the insane and
> murderous slaughter in Afghanistan? The same smoking materials,
> perhaps, that make you believe the GOP is a party of small government
> and individual liberty?
>
> Let me make it perfectly clear, Pat, once and for all, that the only
> interest libertarians have in the Republican Party is seeing it
> crumble and vanish, so that there'll be one down and only one left to
> go.
>
> And that, of course, is the point, isn't it? More and more the
> electoral balance of power lies with the Libertarian Party, whose
> "losing" candidates have proven themselves capable of handing a race
> to your adversaries if they wish. 'Fess up, Pat. You'd advocate the
> abolition of the LP if you had the guts, wouldn't you? Instead, you
> have to resort to this kind of incompetently devious claptrap over
> immigration.
>
> There's an easier way, Pat, to remove the "threat" to your party that
> libertarianism represents. I remember a time when you were a
> libertarian-leaning conservative. A time when you advocated free
> trade and maybe even open borders. A time before you decided that the
> only way to get ahead was by sucking up to xenophobes, bigots, and
> labor unions.
>
> I remember something else you said, a few years ago when you were
> deciding to run as ... well, whatever it was you decided to run as.
> You patronizingly urged Libertarians to abandon our unwonted
> "purity". Yours was the only train headed in the direction we wanted
> to go, you said, and we'd damn well better hop aboard because it was
> leaving the station.
>
> Well your train turned out to Lionel, didn't it, Pat? Going around
> and around in endless circles and never getting anywhere? I can't
> honestly say the same isn't true of the LP, but I can say that the
> 21st century had better be the Century of the Non-Aggression
> Principle and the Bill of Rights -- or no human being will live to
> see the 22nd century.
>
> And I can also say we're the only train headed in the direction you
> claim you want to go, and that you'd damn well better hop aboard. It
> should be simplicity itself to defend the existence of your poor,
> precious party, Pat. Just be better than we are on all of the issues
> that count. Enforce the Bill of Rights stringently, energetically and
> enthusiastically. Declare "Peace with Honor" in the illegal War on
> (some) Drugs. Repeal, nullify, or otherwise dispose of the
> 25,000-plus laws that presently deny Americans their rights under the
> Second Amendment.
>
> In short, abolish the welfare/warfare state.
>
> Can't do it, can you?
>
> Won't do it, will you?
>
> I've said for many years that the socialists who call themselves
> liberals habitually break freedom's legs with irrational legislation,
> and then criticize it because it can't run. They have no interest of
> any kind in seeing the Bill of Rights enforced, because most of them
> would wind up on a street corner somewhere selling pencils from a tin
> cup.
>
> But they are far from alone in their nasty habits, Pat. It isn't
> libertarianism that leads to statism -- we were already there a long
> time before the birth of the modern movement -- it's socialists like
> you, who call themselves conservatives, who have taken us where we
> are today.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Excerpted via
> THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE ................................ ISSUE 158
>
> January 28, 2002 ......................... Anarchy, Slaves, and Death
>
> THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE is available at
> <http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/index.html>
> Web edition of TLE courtesy of Ken Holder.
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