We Can't Afford Illegal Immigrants.

Janet Daley, in the Telegraph:

If working people are to fend for themselves and support their own families without help, they cannot be under-bid for employment by migrants who, as often as not, have no dependants and no permanent obligations in the host country. The uncontrolled movement of peoples around the globe is problematic for welfare states – which can end up supporting them – but it may present even more dramatic difficulties for a country with a contracting state. The combination of reduced welfare and unlimited migration could produce ugly consequences which no responsible person wants to see.

The premise that immigration should never be limited is relatively modern and backed up by little besides an altruistic frisson. The libertarian responds that labor has the right to move where it wills. And it may indeed. But in a world where the supply of capital outweighs the supply of labor, the free movement of the latter penalizes the workers of nations that develop the former.

Too many promises have been made by altruists, promises based on faith that any good that could be imagined could be done without cost to other goods. Like an overextended credit card, we'll be paying for it for a long time.

In Fairness to Rand Paul...

...there is a downside to public accommodation laws. They often create a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

How did a civil rights principle meant to aid African Americans and others who suffered grievous discrimination for generations come to protect the “right” of Neo-Nazis to parade their Nazi wardrobes in a privately owned restaurant against the wishes of management? The short answer is that legislation and its interpretation doesn’t develop from a coherent set of moral principles, but instead based on who is able to persuade the legislatures and the courts to adopt the principles they prefer. The principle involved in Alpine Village case appears to be hostility to the rights of private property owners, not “civil rights.”

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Apparently the Libertarians have decided that Rand Paul is insufficiently pure.

The Ultimate Libertarian.

The Essayist #19: Rand Paul is not a Bigot, Just a Dumb Libertarian

In the wake of Rand Paul putting his foot in it, Ace does yeoman's work explaining in exact detail why the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not unconstitutional.

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were specifically enacted with the purpose of eradicating slavery and duly -- constitutionally -- empowered Congress to pass legislation in furtherance of this purpose. To say such laws are "unconstitutional" is simply in error -- previous to the lawful and constitutional passage of those amendments, such laws would have indeed have been unconstitutional and an unlawful overreach of granted Congressional power.
After their lawful passage, however, Congress did have that authority.

And the reason that Congress decided that it need that authority was because certain states were violating the rights of their citizens, of failing to do the thing governments are created to do. The Constitution thus comes  more fully in line with the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence.

Peasants in feudal society weren't technically slaves, but they were peons, persons with sharply-curtailed rights and certain obligations (including deference) to their social betters/masters. I think a fair reading of "slavery" includes the idea of "peonage," too. Unless there is some critical constitutional point here to be vindicated, I do not see any defensible purpose in arguing these amendments outlawed slavery but gave full constitutional blessing to regime of enforced peonage.

Precisely. Slavery and peonage are offenses against liberty, that can only be maintained by the use of force. As Governments exist to secure liberties, our government should be willing and able to act against one person's attempt to destroy the liberty of another. Hence, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a necessary and constitutional redress against 400 years of slavery and peonage.

Would it have been better if it was not necessary? Assuredley. Are there things about the way the Civil Rights Act as been used that I consider wrong, and offenses to liberty? Without doubt. But the law, as intended, has no legal or ethical flaw.

Libertarians and Teh Racism

David Boaz of Cato wrote an article for Reason.com that started some pretty fierce discussions on liberties and oppressions past. A key excerpt:

"Big Tent Libertarianism"

Enjoy libertarians accusing each other of heresy. The above phrase appears, seemingly without irony.