Dear Craig,

We currently have benevolent relations, by my reckoning, and we are also somewhat acquainted. So I’m addressing this (admittedly long, but intellectually thorough) letter specifically to you, in the hope you will give it consideration. I’m also hoping other Objectivist intellectuals, especially Harry Binswanger and Yaron Brook, will read it, as well as other Objectivists and libertarians who share your view on immigration.

Before proceeding, let me remind of the immense stakes involved in this debate. The Exclusion Principle applies: it cannot be simultaneously true that the citizens inside a country have a moral right to establish criteria of entry to their country (of whatever kind) AND people in general outside the country have a moral right to enter (again, regardless any implementation details or possible marginal exclusions.) To make this concrete: either the ~250M adult citizens within the United States have a right to their border and to establish entry criteria, OR the 5.5 to 6 BILLION adults outside the country have, in principle, a moral right to enter. Does it have to be reminded that at least 1.5 to 2 billion of those people are passionate devotees of a horrifically irrational, totalitarian religious death cult, whose ideology encompasses not just morality, but covers all aspect of its believers’ lives, from family, to community, to law, to justice, to the submission or slaughter of all non-believers everywhere. (We are going to get to this…)

Although these two views have sometimes been referred to as “open” vs “closed” (borders), I know you eschew those two terms and what they imply; I agree, they are not accurate. Many who share your view describe it as (an application of) “freedom of movement”, which term I will henceforth use; I will refer to its opposite (and my view) as “citizen rights”.

First I would like to analyze “freedom of movement”, including my observation of the seemingly implied method of analysis used to arrive at and defend this view. Then, I will show what are all the incorrect or missing steps being employed (or not employed) in the analysis, which when applied, invalidate it. Finally, I present my analysis of this area, including “showing my work” in terms of the method of analysis that Ayn Rand consistently used in developing her ideas, which method I humbly claim to have fully dissected, understood, and consistently applied.

“Freedom of Movement”

Let me start with the conclusion: with all due respect notwithstanding, you folks are simply wrong. Not a bit wrong. No mostly wrong. Completely and spectacularly wrong. Please let me show why.

I have been involved in online debates (and sometimes rancorous arguments, I confess) for a number of years now, and have been engaged with scores of advocates of “freedom of movement.” Yet in all that time, no one has provided an actual analysis of their case.

As I understand, there is just a 2 or 3 step process, all of which are largely deductive.

1. A person has the Right to Life;
2. A logical implication is “the right to movement” or more clearly, “freedom of movement”;
3. Therefore, people have the right to cross any border.

In one of his excellent lecture courses, and in his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR), her decades long friend, and intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, outlined an erroneous analytic methodology, that he noticed many Objectivists making. (He even once confessed he had been sometimes employing this himself.) (He called it “Rationalism”, a name I dislike; I accept his full analysis, but refer to this with the clearer, and less confusing name, “Deductionism.”) He notes that this method often features the attempt to derive completely new knowledge, not through analysis of facts, and inductive processes, but rather, by deduction. I believe this is exactly what is being done here. “Right to Life” <therefore> “Right to move” <therefore> “Right to move across borders, unimpeded. Q.E.D.”

The first major error here, is dropping context of intellectual hierarchy. Morality is earlier in the hierarchy of ideas than Political Philosophy, which is also lower than Applied Politics. One cannot simply deduce from an abstract moral principle, a political imperative in one deductive step. As an example, consider property rights. In my view, it is one of the “big 3” rights: Life, Liberty, Property. But actually implementing property rights in the context of a country and its political system is an immensely complex, and multi-faceted endeavor. It requires laws, of several kinds: criminal, to define offenses against property; for land, a land registry enabling statute, and the creation of the registry office; common law defining various types of disputes about property, and their resolution, amongst others. Imagine if someone did a one step process of deducing “property rights” into politics, and then just claimed with no consideration of all those other factors, that, say, “everyone should therefore get an equal share of the land in a country.”

But this is not close to the worst of it. Objectivism expresses two extremely important ideas, that replace their erroneous formulations from other philosophies:

1. There is no dichotomy between theory and practice.
2. There is no dichotomy between the moral and practical.

Ayn Rand demonstrated in her novels and essays, especially ones analyzing contemporary events, that every theory implies a practice, and every practice implies a theory. The same for moral ideals and practical results. These truths are not mere hypotheses, nor “most of the time” rules of thumb; they are intrinsic truths of the necessary relation between true, fact-derived ideas, and the consequences of this ideas when applied in reality.

These truths have been entirely ignored by “freedom of movement” advocates.

So how about we look at some facts? Facts of practice. Facts of what is practical (according to a standard of “man’s life as a rational being.”)

Many European countries, and now to a degree the United States, have allowed sizable numbers of the irrational cultists I mentioned earlier to immigrate to their country. Not the nearly unlimited numbers that a “freedom of movement” border would allow; a mere fraction. Yet even those more moderate numbers have had disastrous consequences to the quality of life of native citizens. The newcomers don’t “assimilate” to Western ideals. Quite the opposite. They stridently maintain their beliefs, and act on them. A central belief is the inferiority of “infidels” (especially Jews), and that is how they act. Scandinavian countries that once had almost no rapes, saw the rates skyrocket as gangs of the newcomers attacked native women. Jews are harrassed. Entire sprawling neighborhoods are colonized, and made all but unlivable to natives. “Sharia Law” gets imposed from within in these areas, propagating the de facto enslavement of women, and harsh moral and legal codes.

“Oh, just call the police.”

Really? I have demonstrated in another work that the peace and civility we enjoy in the West is specifically not caused by the existence of police—the number of police is tiny in relation to the populace. The thing that causes peace and tranquility is a people who hold rational values, especially respect for the individual rights of others. It is totally impossible to somehow replace the absence of this quality in a substantial minority of citizens, concentrated geographically, with “more police”. And tell me please, even if true, who has to pay for this doubling, tripling, ten-timesing of police services? Me? So you are saying that I must pay for this alleged right of the newcomers to enter… Isn’t this exactly the opposite of rights as conceived by Objectivism?

How about the “moral and the practical”. One thing I’ve noticed about “freedom of movement” advocates, oh man are you people strident in your view. You all get the biggest head of steam when defending your view. “This is moral! We must do what is moral!” What about the innocent Danish woman walking home alone at night from her job. She’s done this for years. But on a night not long after a new tranche of “migrants” have entered, she gets dragged into an alley and repeatedly and brutally raped by a gang of thugs, who verbally deride her as an “infidel whore” while doing so. Gee, this “moral ideal” wasn’t too practical for her, was it? But it is not one crime that makes this case; it is the overriding new atmosphere of hate and menace that has been introduced into what was previously a civilized society. As a gay man, another frequent target of the death cult, how can you ask me to believe that by “upholding” this alleged right of one-plus billion such people to move here, the result must obviously be practical? When I now have to fear for me life everywhere I go, suffer demeaning taunts, be afraid if I go to a gay bar that it might get blown up, etc. How can you tell me that such disastrous existential consequences are the “practical” effects of something you claim is moral?

And this leads into the even worse disaster than the last. Ayn Rand taught, and demonstrated, that a politics of freedom must come from a rational culture. The political philosophy of a country derives from the philosophical views, explicit or implicit, of its residents (citizen and non-citizen alike.) And after many decades of unsuccessful political activism, she finally concluded (after the Barry Goldwater debacle) that it is “too early” for political activism per se, because the culture was not “ready” for full freedom. So she advocated philosophic and intellectual activism, to try to improve the predominant ideologies taught in colleges, along with promoting her philosophy of Objectivism more generally.

Have you ever been a boat with a serious leak Craig? Is the solution to bail water out, and try to plug the leak? As a solution to the leaky boat, “freedom of movement” philosophy recommends bailing water into the boat.

The truth is, Craig, that “freedom of movement” philosophy fails every single fundamental fact-based “reality check” that Objectivism offers.

Craig, I need you to soberly understand the consequences of a fact-based, Objectivism-informed analysis of “freedom of movement”.

“Freedom of movement” is necessarily false. It is false in its formulation (using deduction, rather than induction.) It is especially false in causing demonstrable existential disaster, which no true and moral principle could possibly cause.

I previously held a sort of “default” view of permissive immigration. But even then, my focus was on citizen rights to things like association and trade (labor); my focus was never on the possible benefits of outsiders. But it was exactly my focus on the practical consequences of having no standards of entry, and particularly of permitting large numbers of demonstrably irrational and Western-hostile savages into civilized Western countries, that I realized my previous permissive view was necessarily false. Note this carefully—there are two separate things involved here: 1. the refutation of idea A; and 2. the formulation of a correct alternative B. Many times truth comes from first rejecting an idea previously advanced as true. The rejection is a first, necessary step, but does not in and of itself lead to the truth.

I identified what is the truth in this context, as part of the development of my revolutionary new political system of full freedom, based on Objectivism and free market capitalist economic analysis, that I call Juristocracy. Please let me explain, in quite some detail, the analytical support for its policy on immigration (and entry into the country more generally.) First though, I must make some important comments about Ayn Rand’s characteristic methodology, and the degree to which it is understood and/or consistently practiced by Objectivists, including professional intellectuals such as yourself, Harry Binswanger, Yaron Brook, and others.

I must emphasize: the most preeminent living Objectivist Philosopher, Leonard Peikoff, who despite have almost three decades of intensive, ongoing tutelage by Ayn Rand, confessed that at one time he realized he was being so predominantly Deductionist, he had to temporarily stop teaching. The moral: anyone can succumb to this erroneous method, either in single instances or as a pattern, and regardless of how expert they may think they are on Rand, or how many essays or books they may have written. In fact this is the insidious aspect of this erroneous approach: I think very many people, not just prominent intellectuals, somehow equate its as being “immoral” or indicating “irrationality”, and almost refuse to consider they may be deeply in its grips. Please, keep an active mind…

Ayn Rand’s Method

Ayn Rand employed a historically unique analytic methodology in her philosophy and other topics. The method is, in a certain aspect, dangerous and seductive… Let me explain how. Her method, which is explained in some detail in OPAR, I call the “objective-inductive-integrative” method. For any particular topic of analysis, such as “morality”, “rights”, or in our case, “immigration”, this method involves an iterative process of collecting up facts relevant to the topic, establishing a set of intellectual contexts, which are previously developed true ideas of relevance, and then forming inductive abstractions from the facts along relevant dimensions, forming intermediate ideas or predicates, and finally integrating the new ideas with all other relevant, validated, existing knowledge. For complex topics like morality, there will be a progressive series of such formulations and integrations. At every step, a mandatory “reality check” must be performed, which involves a reasonably comprehensive search of either facts, or other thought-to-be-true ideas, that would contradict the truth of the present formulations in progress, before final integration into the whole. Contradictory facts or truths necessitate a process of “premise checking”, to find the source of the mistake, whether in one’s own formulations, or possibly, ideas used as context which may be false.

It is actually quite a complex process, that takes time to learn, and which may not always result in proper truth reached during a learning process. But the great things, is its focus on facts, both during the induction process, as well as the contradiction-checking process.

One interesting attribute of this process, is that explaining the result of the analysis in a case, is best done by simply rewinding the final correct analysis, and replaying it (in words), without of course including any missteps and backtracking, although these could be cited if they help understanding.

Ayn Rand’s essays have her methodology baked right in, but without explicitly explaining or in most cases drawing attention to that methodology. This explains the astounding power of her writing: she is relating true ideas by supplying the analytic steps involved in formulating and integrating them with other knowledge, which happen to be the same steps needed to understand, learn and integrate the ideas into your own mind.

Dangerous and seductive?

She makes it look easy. Too easy. But because the essays have the analytic methodology implicity baked in, they, in essence, “hide” the existence of that complex and rigorous methodology. And this is where disasters happen…

For some reason, and I don’t think even Dr Peikoff had a good explanation, it seems to be a fact that Objectivists (in particular) are drawn to using deduction as a default methodology when performing their own analyses, regardless of topic or scope. This approach tries to search for an abstract idea that seems applicable to the topic, and then performing seeming-logical deductions, which then are presented as a new truth. But the problem, is that deduction is only ever narrowly applicable, insofar as the context of the topic must match key attributes of the abstraction, such that the deduction is a proper instance of the abstraction. Most topics of interest do not meet this criteria.

Some examples: “Sex is for reproduction; homosexual relations cannot result in reproduction; therefore homosexuality is unnatural.” “It doesn’t matter if taxation is wrong; if we tried to finance using voluntary mechanisms there might be ‘free riders”; since “free riders’ are unfair, we must have taxes.” “Roads are necessarily a monopoly. Since a private owner could impede or financially exploit drivers, the government must own and operate roads.” (I’ve heard all these from Objectivists.)

Sadly, Ayn Rand never really wrote explicitly about her process; she mentioned that in the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which just covers concept formation, but provides no guidance in the most important aspects of her method. I learned the method myself, by analyzing several of Ayn Rand’s essays, and making notes about what every sentence, paragraph, and sequence did, and how it served the overall whole. What I thought was just going to provide great guidance in writing and expressing ideas, turned out to be an object lesson in analysis!

Immigration in Juristocracy

My analysis of immigration was as part of a wider whole, a new political system I call Juristocracy. My analysis of extant political systems led me to discover several faulty premises that have been assumptions of politics since antiquity. And I also demonstrated that voluntary financing, far from being a wish “for a distant future” (Rand) is in fact a necessary central feature, the one missing feature that is needed to prevent (eventual) runaway growth of government, along with acceptance of its coercive invasion of citizen rights.

While it’s true that government is necessary, and that government qua organization has special status as the agency empowered to employ coercion in retaliation for its initiation, and to enforce civil judgments, it is in other respects similar to other non-economic organizations, such as sports clubs, intellectual societies, or charities. (Eg. it is a legal person, that itself can own property, make contractual agreements, etc.) All organizations have members, who are empowered to make decisions about the organization. In the case of government, this is the country’s citizens.

One of the important features of Juristocracy, is voluntary, conditional citizenship. The legacy conception of citizenship, from antiquity to today, has been citizenship as an unconditional relationship with government, conferred typically at birth, and which has often been used to justify all manner of duties and enforced responsibilities of citizens. And conversely, it is a violation of the individual’s right of association to legally bestow association by membership in the citizenry of a government. For example, this violates the right of association of anarchists, and others who fundamentally disagree with the core principles of their government (however wrong this disagreement may be.)

What is worse though, is that it is a contradiction to empower people with a voice in government affairs, basically at random as a result of birth, who as adults may not agree that the sole valid purpose of government is to protect rights. There is no such thing as a “right” to violate rights. No one who has a say in government affairs can claim any right to influence or directly cause that government to violate rights. These reasons are why citizenship under Juristocracy is both voluntary, and conditional. A person becomes eligible to apply at age of majority, and must in addition, swear an oath of allegiance in word and deed to the principle of individual rights, and the core principles of the government (which protect same.) Existing facts about an applicant that clearly contradict such oath of allegiance, makes the applicant ineligible. And later accused expressions or actions that contradict their oath, may be brought before a citizenship court, which has the power, after due process, to terminate an individual’s citizenship.

A country is a form of non-economic property. Unlike individual pieces of land within the country, which can accede to the status of privately owned property, the country as a whole is property of a different form. The country itself comprises the territory over which the military and civil institutions of a government can, as a matter of fact (not bluster or intent) extend their jurisdiction. Within this, the citizens then have a variety of rights regarding the formation and execution of their government. They can make (valid) laws. They can establish courts, police services, prisons and jails, offices of property registration for relevant forms of property (land, radio waves, etc.), and mechanisms of voluntary financing to fund the operation of all these things. These are exactly the things whose purpose is comparable to their exercise of rights to personal property, or collectively as a member of an organization. Property serves the values of individuals. The country qua property serves the value needed by all (whether they agree or not; whether they understand or not): protection of their individual rights.

In addition to controlling the domestic aspect of their government, citizens also have the right to form a military for the defense of the country against foreign aggression. And perhaps most importantly, especially in today’s world, they can establish border protection to prevent the entry of individuals or groups demonstrably inimical to individual rights. To this end, citizens have both a moral right, and a moral obligation to establish standards of entrance, based on objective criteria to the end of protecting rights. In Juristocracy, it is pointed out that there is a strong relationship in this standard, to the one used to arbitrate applications for citizenship. Basically, no one whose ideas and or past behavior contradict a claim of allegiance to full freedom, and full respect for and allegiance to individual rights: 1) has any moral claim to enter; and 2) is also thereby an objective threat in principle to the residents of the country.

This point #1 is really critical to note. It is outrageous to claim that outsiders have some kind of blanket fundamental moral right to enter a free country. By what standard of consistency? No one who does not understand and abide by the idea of respecting individual rights can make any moral claim to enter a free country.

Of course, as with any principle of practical politics, these principles regarding both citizenship and entry (or especially immigration) need to be codified legally, and implemented with objective rules of application. But clear principles are not difficult to codify and apply.

One thing I will assert flat out: no person who claims allegiance to Islam is objectively eligible to enter a free country. Islam is not a quaint gathering conducted in a church building on Sundays. As shown earlier, it is a comprehensive moral, social, political, and legal philosophy encompassing all aspects of the person and society. And every single one of its tenets and beliefs is contradictory to the needs of a rational life. And I’m not talking crazy prescriptions from an ancient text that no one believes or follows anymore. I’m talking the living, breathing, currently preached ideology, with particular reference to the horrifically violent actions of its adherents all over the globe. It is an ideology that is fundamentally opposite to the Western values of: reason, rights, happiness, freedom, and more.

A particularly pernicious counter-claim to these features of Juristocracy (aspects of which govern our immigration system today) is in the following form. “Well, if there is a means test to enter, then it logically follows that people inside a country can be kicked out for their beliefs.” This is a grievously dishonest claim, and is frankly the kind of thinking I have come to expect from those who promulgate the train-wreck that is “freedom of movement.” But it deserves clear obliteration.

I have been repeatedly arguing how certain rights only obtain by consistency. Part of the intellectual responsibility and moral obligation of establishing a government in a territory, is that the government MUST protect individual rights in that territory without exception. These imply many civil rights, such as freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, protection of association and trade, protection of expression, particularly unpopular ideas or those contrary to freedom, and of course freedom of movement within the country. In order to interfere with any of these necessary civil rights, the government would have to initiate force against someone who had presumably not done so. This would obviously be wrong.

The case of outsiders is exactly opposite. First, the territory of jurisdiction of the government, and its obligation to protect a long list of civil rights, is within the country, not outside it. But more importantly, in the case of someone trying to cross a border, they (as explained) have no specific rights; in this case, if they don’t meet the objective criteria of entry, they would be initiating force, against the jointly managed property of the territory, if they tried to enter. In this case, repelling them is an act of defense, not an initiation of force.

Some people claim that their right to associate or employ is violated by immigration or entry conditions. This is appalling context dropping. People have those social rights as a general principle. However their implementation requires a context, and are thus not contextless absolutes. As regards within the territory, which is the only area under which the government operations apply, it is indeed fully true. The government may not interfere in any social or economic associations. Neither can they, except cases involving possible military and/or national security ramifications, interfere with social or economic associations made outside the country. But these freedoms exist in the context in which the protection of the rights of everyone, by way of restricting entry to the country of rights-hostile individuals. This is an example where objective law and legal procedures trump anyone’s personal evaluation. That is whim. That is anarchy. Just as my assertion that my own property extends onto my neighbor, doesn’t give me a legal right to go traipsing around that area, neither does someone’s claim they have a need or desire to import an objectively ineligible person who does not meet criteria of respecting rights give them a “right” to import such a person.

Wider Integration

One of the most appalling traits I see in almost all “freedom of movement” advocates is a complete “blank out” regarding the supreme value, and rarity of a free society. These advocates just seem to take a free country for granted, almost like a fact of nature. “It’s always been here; always will be.” They ignore how historically and currently rare is a free society. There has never existed now or in all recorded history a fully free society.

But even a semi-free country is a comparatively huge achievement. Just focusing on America… our founding required a bloody casuality-ridden war, at times with the end seeming hopeless. Soldiers were fighting against growing tyranny, but with only a vague promise of freedom as the goal. Fortunately, it worked out for them. Not so much for French revolutionaries though…

The instruments of a free society, such as courts and police, require ongoing resources, especially money. Laws need to be given ongoing scrutiny, and many challenged. The military, especially in today’s world, also requires great resources in money, resources, and manpower.

NONE OF THIS GROWS ON TREES.

A prosperous society that is not authoritarian or a dictatorship is obviously a highly desirable place to live. Of course millions, probably billions believe their interests would be better served living in the US than the pesthole country in which they currently live. But do “freedom of movement” people ask themselves what is the relationship between the predominant ideology of residents of a pesthole country, and its identity as a pesthole? Blank out. At best they offer quarter-truths like, “Well new immigrants don’t need to be granted citizenship.” But when should they? Do you all believe in the legacy idea of “No taxation without representation?” Or how do you reconcile not enumerating “right to citizenship” among those rights you seem to so generously endow upon outsiders.

Do you folks understand the relationship between the ideas predominantly held by residents of all kinds, citizen and non-citizen alike, and the resulting culture, including political culture, but also things as mundane yet important as clean neighborhoods vs trash heaps and homeless encampments? What exactly will all these “rightful” new entrants, pouring in literally by the millions per year (or quarter) do to sustain themselves? Sure, we shouldn’t have the impediments to employment as we do now, but at the moment they are a fact. What will poorly educated, low skill, non-English speakers do for work? Learn how to fraudulently steal billions from American welfare programs? (see: Minnesota.)

Of course labor-related objections to immigration are economically invalid. But in our terminally regulated and taxed system, many economic markets are sluggish or effectively limited. Official employment is limited to only jobs economic at or above the minimum wage. Housing expansions take years to work their way through endless regulatory hurdles. Municipalities have occupancy limits. The rental housing market of course has some elasticity, but that has its limits at a point in time, which could be overwhelmed by large influxes of immigrants.

There is an appalling evasion of the fact that just because you may not be able to identify a single specific person as a risk, various demographic groups have fairly reliable statistical predictors. If you have a relatively rape-free country, and migrants/immigrants from X country with general demographic Y have a history of committing rapes at a rate of Z, and the number you propose to let in will result in the rate of rapes and other assaults to skyrocket, how in the world can you justify letting ANY of that group in?

A free country exists to bring the benefit of freedom to its citizens and residents. Period. Why would any of these residents want to allow entry of people who will demonstrably increase the violation of their rights? What you people are demanding, is that us free citizens living in our presently civilized country, must sacrifice our own personal interests, to somehow respect the alleged right of outsiders to come in? Insanity.

This leads me to my last, and possibly most critical point. You folks may argue your case as much as you want. But it is so demonstrably invalid to most liberty-minded, rational people, that it would find zero purchase. But the worst part, is you are claiming this “right” is a natural implication of Objectivism. What does this do to trying to promote Objectivism? Seemingly prominent Objectivist intellectuals, including a publisher of a popular Objectivist-oriented magazine, and a leader at ARI, along with a longstanding student and friend of Ayn Rand, with a doctorate in philosophy.. all of you are peddling this on-the-face suicidal idea, whose even limited contemporary application has led to horrific disaster everywhere. Don’t you realize what you are doing to the Objectivist movement as a whole? I think it’s perfectly reasonable for newcomers to this ideology to give some weight to such a group with such credentials. What will be their reaction except dismissal of the entire philosophy?

And let’s be clear: I’m not talking about somehow pandering to newcomers by in any way compromising Rand’s philosophy. But incorrect ideas have consequences, and in this case, I believe (essentially) unlimited immigration in today’s world is so invalid on the face of it, that liberty-minded people not previously acquainted in detail with Rand’s work, would be given great pause to study further.

Conclusion

A country’s citizens have the moral right and obligation to establish standards of entry to a free country that excludes those who do not support individual rights and freedom.

People external to a free country have no right of entry whatsoever.