The controversy over the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state motivated me to post this poll.

What is special about Jews that allows them but no other "ethnic" group to do this?

This is my own poll, but I am not sure yet how even to answer it, hence this discussion.

The current mouthpiece of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), Yaron Brook, was born and raised in Israel, and I think that unduly influences his "official" pro-Israel positions advocated in his speeches, podcasts, and writings.  Why "open borders" for every nation but Israel?  No answer.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 4/09, 9:41pm)

Right now I am leaning toward "no" because of the many questions begged, namely those of marriage and reproduction outside the "sanctioned" ethnicity.

A rational nationalism would center on life-affirming secular virtues any average person can practice, not unchosen traits like race.

SW observed:

"It is not morally defensible to establish a government for any purpose other than the protection of individual rights."

Does this make Israel "not morally defensible" since it was established by and for Jews as a nationally privileged class on land they had not occupied in millennia and to which they claimed ownership based in part on mystical Zionism?

I really am trying to understand this.  Someone on another forum contended that the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) has devolved into a de facto Israeli Defense Fund.  There is some truth to that.  Something strange is happening here.

I answered "Sometimes" because "some" populations that adhere to "some" key cultural values are morally defensible while all others are not.

If the United States has the "right" to regulate immigration, then people lack the right to sustain and promote their own lives. That is a logical problem with the idea of excluding folks from moving here.

Desperate people trapped in totalitarian hell have little recourse outside of immigrating to a more benevolent society. I think they have the right to move here, or anywhere else they choose, without approval from some board of bureaucrats.

It is true that bad people with bad ideas would pour in under open borders policy. It's also true that this would pollute the aggregate mind set of the population, over time. Moreover, many would do what Americans do, which is attempt to live at the expense of others. So I can't pound the table and shout for open borders, because we're headed for hell in any case and it would speed us on our way.

Obviously, part of the solution is to shut down the welfare state, so immigrants and everyone else would have to pay their own way. Failing that, we could prohibit immigrants from taking any public services and assistance, but exclude them from income tax. Hear the left shriek over that idea. 

As to excluding people based on bad ideas, in a social democracy in which bad ideas are used as a tool of oppression, it is necessary. But it is a rear guard action, not a permanent defense in our culture in which there is already a lot of irrationality.

In a free and rational society, open borders would be entirely appropriate, unless one is a bad criminal.

We all inherited an intellectual failing from common education, public or private: the acceptance of "dictionary definitions" as an intellectual standard. In Orwell's 1984, it was the active use of Newspeak in daily life.  We victimize our intellects with short, declarative sentences expressing broad truths.  Such truths do exist: A is A. But immigration policy is more complicated than that. It depends on context, and not just one context for one truth, but several truths, each in several contexts.  You cannot write enough laws to satisfy every possible requirement.   A good expression of what is required is found in the basic law that, ultimately, matters at trial come down to the judgment of 12 reasonable people.   Steve's reply in #10 above is one start to an informative discussion.

On a separate but related topic, for the past year, I have been reading about military counter-insurgency.  My degrees (2008, 2010) are in criminology.  So, I have to ask: what is the difference between an immigrant who commits a crime, and an enemy soldier sent in as a saboteur?  And then: what is the difference between a large number of criminal immigrants and an invading army?  And, on the same point, how is "crime" differentialble from a military insurengency? 

Mark,

I am not sure that I buy the idea of collective ownership, unless each member of the collective explicitly and voluntarily agrees to stipulations.

Let me start by breaking down ownership as a concept.  If you view ownership as a bundle of rights - each to certain actions relative to an object - then you can see that we have, for example, a moral right to breathe in the air that our life requires.  And breathing is an action relative to our body (the object in question).  Owning our bodies, means having a bundle of rights - each being an action and each being relative to the object that we own.  Each of the rights is not just about an action, but implies the relationship between the object and the individual.  It is MY right to breath.  But, we are able to define rights by our nature as individuals (it is an individual right, so it is Steve's right, Mark's right, etc. - common to all individuals.)

Notice that we can have moral rights without first explicitly or voluntarily agreeing. 

But there are legal rights as well.  The right to sell stock in a company is an action that you acquired the legal right to take when you purchased the stock.  When you purchased the stock you became a collective owner.... and, in that example, it was done explicitly and voluntarily.

I would say that the "collective" part of the ownership (when it is that kind of ownership) is not directly tied to the "agrees" part.  Some things are owned collectively (corporations, partnerships, property held in common by marriage), and not everything has an explicit, voluntary agreement... like the intestate inheritance one has a legal right to (parents die in an accident and have no will.  Kids inherit.  They own that right to inherit upon the death of their parents absent any agreement to the contrary).
----------------

Government is an institution whose proper purpose is to uphold justice, which requires proper definition and defense of individual rights. If it is founded on voluntary consent, as it ought to be, then individuals truly delegate certain responsibilities to it.

I agree with the part about the purpose of government and the definition and defense of individual rights.  But not on the part about voluntary consent... at least not so much.  Here is why.  If a career thief is also a citizen and has given his voluntary consent, what are we going to say?  That his consent was invalid because he planned on violating rights?  Does that make the government's attempt to arrest him when he steals wrong (he didn't give proper consent)?  Or if the thief refused to consent, does that mean government has to give him a free pass to steal?  What about a man who was born here, therefore is a citizen, but, like me, never explicitly gave consent?  Does that mean govenment, even when it acts true to its proper purpose, is illegitamet?  What about a government that is 95% acting to defend individual rights and 5% violating them?  No one has the right to consent to a government violation of rights.  Contracts, which are civil agreements, grant legal rights, and must, by their nature, be explicit and voluntary.  But with government I just don't have what feels like the definitive answer to the issue of "consent of the governed."  At this point, I have an answer that is just made up as a kind of intellectual place-holder.  We all grant our moral consent to the protection of individual rights - and no more - not explicitly, but just by being creatures who have individual rights and who live among men. That consent is logically derived as opposed to voluntarily given, but it only grants the authority to defend individual rights and is not a blanket authorization.  It is a kind of axiomatic consent in the sense that no one can consent to the violation of the rights of others, and no one can have a moral right to object to the protection of individual rights.

I'm not entirely happy with that answer, but it is what I have now.  It has the value of making proper government moral and any action of any government that violates an individual right is not sanctioned by that 'consent.'
----------------

Government has no rights, I think; only individuals do. If government has no rights, the collective  government is said to represent also lacks rights. Except that I do not think any collective has any rights. Rights have as their purpose the defense of individual moral agency. Collectives can't choose, and therefore lack rights. Properly constituted government represents, in an agency relationship, not a collective; but rather an assortment of individuals, all of whom maintain an identical reciprocal relationship with that government.

Government has no individual rights... only individual have individual rights.  That's true.  But government has legal rights (granted by the constitution, which was granted by the ratification of a majority of the states at the time, whose representatives doing the ratification were elected by a majority of the citizens of those states).

A corporation keeps track of its "owners of record" - usually this is done by a bank for the corporation.  This is a record of who were owners of stock (and how many shares and of what stock issue) at any given date.  With government what we have is citizenship.  Looking at this as a legal ownership right in the common property, it is something we inherit (from whom?) at birth, if we are born here.  Hey, those are just the rules governing this legal right as it currently exists.  (I think that citizenship should NOT go a person by being born here, but that everyone should have to take a test before becoming a citizen - a test that you take at age 18 or so.  If you are born to a couple, at least one of whom has a legal right to be here, then you should inherit the legal right to be here (not citizenship)  That's how I see it). 

A collective would have no individual rights.  True.  But it can be a way of talking about the legal rights of those individuals who make up that collective.  For example, if a group of individuals all sign a contract saying that they will put x number of dollars into an investment, then sell that investment vehicle in 10 years and divide the money, they, collectively have legal rights relative to the investment.  That is, we can talk about their rights in that fashion.  If you are member of this collective, you have this or that right.  Collectively speaking humans have the capacity to choose, but the collective can't choose, just the individuals.

Legal rights should always have, at their base, moral rights.  I have a right to my life, hence I should have a legal right to defend myself, and it should be against the law (legally prohibited) for someone to murder me.  Contracts are a recognition that we own certain things (have rights to take certain actions relative to some object) and that we can trade or give away those rights.  So, if I have full legal title to an autombile, I have the right to drive it around, and I can trade that right to someone else.  They can drive it around for a period of time in exchange for money.  In that rental agreement for my car. we are dealing with legal rights, but they rest upon moral rights (individual rights).

Collectives do choose... in a sense.  We vote.  We do that as shareholders in a corporation, as homeowners in a homeowner's association, as citizens in our elections.  It is how we exercise the degree of choice the context allows.  When I'm in a romantic relationship, if I'm wise, I'll give up - not my moral agency - but some of my choices, to share in the decision making that is part of the context of our relationship.  The collective 'us' will choose to do some things and not others.   A 'collective choice' is just a way of saying that by some mechanism we adopted one choice over others as the action accepted by the collective.  It is how we exercise our capacity to choose when we share in something... hopefully because that shared concern benefits each of the members over the long haul more than not belonging to that collective.

When you say that "Properly constituted government represents, in an agency relationship, not a collective; but rather an assortment of individuals, all of whom maintain an identical reciprocal relationship with that government,"  that is true in the sense of where government derives its just powers... from the soverign individual who has individual rights.  But we often must talk, when talking government, about things that are relative to all citizens as opposed to those who are not.  E.g., citizens should vote, others should not.  And about the citizens as a group versus the government.  Citizens should be able to do anything that doesn't violate the individual rights of others and government should not be able to do anything unless the constitution specifically authorizes it.  When we do this, we are talking about the collection of individuals as a group.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as we don't attempt to imbue that collection with an identity or properties that it doesn't have.
----------------------

If government exists to defend properly defined individual rights, then it has no right to abrogate the rights of its citizen clients, including for instance, of an employer who wants to hire, or an entrepreneur who wants to move here to facilitate cross border commerce, or a woman who wants to bring in eligible marriage candidates. As soon as the government restricts immigration, it violates the natural rights of its citizens, and also violates the rights of foreign individuals to peacefully sustain and promote their own lives. 

That would all be totally true... unless you recognize that we have property in common that justifies the government, as the custodian/manager of that property, from preventing those who are not owners of that property from using it.  Government can stop people from trespassing on government property - like a military base - it is acting as the agent of the property's owners to protect that property.  If a person is from another country and has not been given a legal authorization to come to this country, then stopping them at the border is justified as long as one recognizes that government is managing a jurisdiction of laws that is property that the citizens hold in common.  An employer has no right to hire someone to work in your livingroom, unless you, as the owner of the right to be in your livingroom, grant your permission.  That is why an employer can't hire someone who would be trespassing on our jurisdiction to take the job - because that person doesn't have the right to do the trespass.  The employer can hire him, but the worker can't come here, just as the employer can hire him to work in your living room, but the worker can't go into your living room.

Our jurisdiction of laws is of huge value.  Even with the great number of bad laws, we have a legal environment that is better than most other places on the globe.  This value is the product of our efforts, our thoughts, our history.  We built it.  We own it.  We need to act in our self-interest as a nation to protect it because it is part and parcel of what protects our individual rights.

------------------------

And you were concerned that your post went on for too long :-)

This is my second attempt at posting this brief remark.

My central point is that collectives have no rights. Rights are a subset of morality (ethics), which derive from man's nature as a thinking choosing being. The individual needs moral and ethical principles to make appropriate choices that sustain and enhance life. Collectives do not think or choose, and so lack moral agency, which rights exist to protect. So collectives do not have rights, including to property.

Mark,

You mentioned, "Collectives ... lack moral agency, which rights exist to protect. " 

I completely agree that a collective lacks moral agency, and I agree that moral rights are the very definition of what should be protected. 

But I want to point out that the mechanism for protecting rights via government is to make laws.  Properly done, a law prohibits each category of action that would constitute a violation of a moral right.  And in doing that, the law gives specific definition to what actions are prohibited.  Like laws that define first degree or second murder, manslaughter, assault, and rape - each of those laws stands as a prohibition of the initiation of violence  with specific definitions.  Thatt allows for objective law enforcement, and a just court of law acting to protect the moral right to ones life by the creation of legal rights and legal prohibitions.  Property rights start as moral rights, but we need to codify them in law to make them actionable in an equitable, just, objective fashion.  We define real property, for example.  Then we can have legal descriptions of a the legal right to occupy a piece of property.

On the vote:  The problem isn't with the idea of resolving a decision by a large number of owners using the vote as a mechanism.  The problem is that people put things up for vote that violate laws, violate the constitution that the law should be consistent with, and violate moral rights which are the foundation for the constituion and the purpose of government.  For example, you should be able to vote for a local representative, but not for an school bond that people will have to pay for who did not want such a bond.  Nor does the representative gain any special moral stature by being elected.  He can't morally vote for a law that violates a single individual's moral rights.  The vote is just a mechanism and confers no special moral authority that would allow the outcome to over-ride the moral rights of a single citizen.

Marotta says, "Anyone who has a job (or a sponsor) has a right to be here; and the government has no right to prevent it."

But that's so wrong!  Clearly there is no legal right for just anyone to enter the country.  No matter how muddled the law are, they don't say, "Anyone who has a job (or a sponsor) can cross the border."

As to a moral right, that also doesn't exist.  Do I have a moral right to enter Marotta's home if I feel like it?  No.  Can Marotta grant some third person the right to enter my home (as their sponsor, for example)?  No.

Can you even have a country in today's world without a border?  Very questionable.  Marotta is clearly taking the anarchy/progressive/open-border position.  He only offers these two arguments: 1.) that the current laws are a mix of rational and irrational and, 2.) that historically there was little attention paid to controlling the border.  So, fix those laws that irrational (as well as can be - perfection isn't required), and because something was done a certain way in the distant past doesn't make it right. Those were not exactly tough arguments to shoot down.

Notice how he sort of sneaks up to the edge of calling those who support control of the border racist?  He does it with a mealy-mouthed reference to 'ethnocentric assumptions'.  This is the just the progressive talking-point: "If you oppose open borders, you are a racist."  I don't even grant it the status of honest argument.  It is just a cowardly form of demonization of anyone who has a different opinion - defame them.

Marotta is snarky, in true progressive fashion, about American values, saying "whatever those might be" - gee, do we have to explain values like rule of law, not men.  Values like a constitutional republic (Oh, that's right, Marotta holds the "living Document" view of the constitution - so it isn't so much a value as an obstacle).  What about the value of a government whose purpose is the protection of unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  What about the bill of rights?

How many people here would be willing to bet good money that Marotta doesn't have a lock on the door to his home, and use it?  (By the way, it is a useless waste of time trying to change the mind of a progressive by pointing out logical inconsistencies or hypocrisy in their arguments.  They don't accept those as constraints.  Those aren't ends to which they tailor their means.)

We have the right to protect a court house from being bombed... "We" being the owners of that court house - that is, the citizens of the legal jurisdiction over which that court presides.  We have the right to say who can or cannot enter a military base (the same "we").  We have elected representatives for given jurisdictions whose job is to make the rules for managing our common property.  They haven't done a very good job, and often violate the very principles they are suppose to be constrained by, but that is what we need to fix... not to throw out the very idea of rules, representative managing, or ownership.  Borders mark the geographic edges of our national jurisdiction.  Enter that jurisdiction legally and you gain the value built into that jurisdiction - a very great value - an American value.

Progressives and anarchist don't understand this.  That's reason enough to reject their ideas.