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Human Rights, Free Movement, and the Social Contract
A libertarian’s driving concern is with maximizing the fundamental rights of all people. I often find myself bumping up against the “Social Contract,” which works as a circuit breaker to that logic. Up until now, I’ve tried to wave away the Social Contract, as most radical libertarians tend to do because of its inconvenience.
I have since concluded this is the wrong way to go about it. It’s foolish to ignore the utility of the Social Contract and the good that has come about under it, even if it is correct that it ultimately should be replaced by something better.
Part of what makes the Social Contract so useful is that it attempts to guarantee the rights of those under it. Presumably, the Social Contract does not give us fundamental rights, but instead asks us to curb some of our fundamental rights for guaranteed benefits. We give the state the power to coerce taxes from us so that it can protect us from harm and run a system that respects our private property.
The question I have is: when does the Social Contract overstep its bounds? I think we all agree that there are curtain rights that can’t be taken away (even if they can be slightly limited) by The Contract – namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So, under the Contract we are necessarily safe to travel around the land to live life and pursue happiness. But, is “traveling” a human right we had before we entered into the Social Contract, or is it a benefit? Do you have a right to travel from your private property to another’s that would accept you? Would society be justified in not letting you personally travel for any reason, as long as it properly passed a law?
If travel is a fundamental human right, is part of the Social Contract to guarantee our benefits at the expense of the rights of foreigners? Is that necessary to ensure the viability of our Contract? If a foreigner would respect your property as much as any native, does our Social Contract allow us to infringe on his fundamental human right, even if he agrees to abide by our Social Contract? An agreement most of us had no choice in?
I hope this sparks discussion because I would like to get a better understanding of what exactly the Social Contract entails.
Published in General
When I say rights, I mean the fundamental God-given ones. I don’t see crossing a border as something tantamount to statutory rape. I don’t think we should treat humans differently based on which side of a line they were born on. I’m not against asking someone questions as they cross, or preventing someone who appears particularly threatening, but I believe it’s right to give people the benefit of the doubt with regards to what they do with their most basic private property, their bodies.
So, you feel as a theological matter that God has given you the right to cross national borders unless you appear particularly threatening? Is this belief based in God’s revelation through scripture, through sacred tradition, or a personal revelation through prayer? If you could answer without reference to policy preferences, only to rights, that would probably be less confusing.
The average Indian gets roughly 0.00000003144654 cents a year from the average American through aid. That’s 0.0000000003144654 dollars. In response to the question “buddy, could you spare me and a billion of my countrymen a dime?”, the average response, as measured by the democratic outcome, is “no, a dime is a little steep, but you can have a few cents to share out.” I hereby commit that if any American (or Canadian) feels the loss of their dime, and attends a meetup that I also attend (and I hope to go to a lot when my visa clears), I will, on request, reimburse them their lifetime payment by buying them a drink, or two if they’re pretty old.
I do not think you can reach your goal of “humane treatment” or policy of “open boarders” with a moral/fundamental rights argument. It can only come through the Social Contract. You have fundamental rights. Those rights end when you cause harm or impose costs on another without their consent. The size or nature of the cost does not matter. You may have the right to travel. That right ends the second your exercise of that right costs me a quarter without my consent. You do not have a right to my quarter. This is the end of your fundamental rights argument. You cannot argue that you have the moral right to cause harm or take money/property from another.
You may say that a quarter does not matter or that you will pay me back the quarter. But that is not your choice, it is my choice as the person harmed to decide whether to care about the quarter or accept the payment. When the cost/harm is spread over a group of people (a country) it is the Social Contract that is used to decide the policy.
I hope I can write a comment that will not be taken as a personal or mean spirited attack – I admire the libertarian philosophy and the writer – but I find those that subscribe to these views to be “enthusiastically gullible;” maybe second cousins to Lenin’s useful idiots. When we come down from the Utopian clouds and look at the empirical damage illegal immigration has done to this country these arguments aren’t so cute or funny anymore. Drudge has a couple of nuggets today about illegal aliens creating mayhem. Illegals are a self-selected subset of all the potential claimants on our natural patrimony – they are the aggressive strivers that are willing to ignore inconvenient laws. If this were just an intellectual exercise this might be entertaining, but Mike H’s ideology has real world impacts – look at Jeb Bush or John McCain as exhibits A and B. We on the conservative side should be able to speak more forcefully for our ideals on this issue, and a vocal subset are making us look more divided than we are, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Then we disagree. I think I have a God given right to life, to liberty, to pursue my own path. I do not think I have the right to move wherever I want, whenever I want.
So, we have to agree to disagree. I might point out that your interpretation of rights is not one shared by the founders at all.
If you let them all in, the Libertarian paradise will soon be gone, as the new people, with no demands to accultruate, will change the fabric of the nation. The free society he places so much faith in will be gone.
If you let them all in, the Libertarian paradise will soon be gone, as the new people, with no demands to acculturate, will change the fabric of the nation. The free society he places so much faith in will be gone.
I agree totally. Mike and the other radical libertarians and I have gone around about this on several comment discussion threads, but I just can’t make them see the error of their ways. I thought using a phrase like “our national patrimony” would get a rise out of them because it’s antithetical to their belief system.
There will be people worse off with open boarders. You can make an argument that the whole economy will improve. I do not fully accept this but there is an argument. You can not state that there will be no losers. Why is it morally OK for these people to be worse off with no say in the matter?
You guys have given me a lot to respond to. I’m not sure if I’ll have the energy to answer all of it, and I’m sure few if any of my answers will be satisfactory,so you’ll have to forgive me and believe I’m not ignoring any one point on purpose.
I don’t believe this is actually true. At least, it’s often ambiguous who’s costing whom. When you are standing on this side of the road you are costing someone else money from having to walk around you. If you weren’t there, it would save them money. What gives you the right to stand there? Same if you had a factory. You are infringing on everyone down wind from you, but if they didn’t live there you wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding them. Who’s costing whom?
But I’m sure you must know I don’t want this, right? That if I thought this would happen I would alter my position to prevent it. That this is such an obvious objection that I must have considered it. Do I get that much credit?
First, I don’t think it’s important from a human rights prospective that they must be given a vote. Although, if they were given a vote, the average immigrant is somewhat more socially democratic than the average native. But, when immigration increases, the natives (especially in America) become less socially democratic. So the net result is ambiguous and likely small.
Many of the founders were wrong about other rights. They had to compromise on the right not to be a slave after all.
Frankly, no. It *is* and obvious point, and you have done nothing to refute it. In fact, you have ignored the Israel example. The pressure is already there with the illegals that are here now, to give them rights and the vote. That is not a hypothetical, but real life, real people calling to just naturalize 11million+ people.
Open borders would change the character of any nation, as you have already admitted. You sneered I was afraid of it, in fact.
You think that it won’t change the character of America so much that we become less free? History shows us that mass immigration changes the character of the community. There are parts of England where women cannot walk uncovered in safety due to immigrants.
You have not made your case that there is a right, and you have not made your case that liberty would not be washed away.
I get a real kick out of your digs, Petty. A am enthusiastic, and at least willing to entertain radical thoughts, but gullible implies I won’t ever be convinced if I’m wrong. I like to think my current positions are a result of always knowing I could be wrong.
Our laws do select for a curtain kind of illegal immigrant which include a high proportion of real criminals since criminals, almost by definition, are willing to take stupid risks. Other than that you have the truly desperate and others who are poor risk takers but not otherwise criminals.
But everyone ignores inconvenient laws after they become inconvenient enough and the likelihood of getting caught is low enough. But I’m more worried about the people who are waiting patiently.
I think this is entirely to simplistic. It works only if aliens dropped a road on a deserted island. You start by ignoring the cost building and maintaining the road. But the road exists in a society. By virtue of your position on the road you have police protection, a fire department if there is an emergency, if you have an emergency medical condition you will receive care in an hospital regardless of your ability to pay for that care. I could actually go on for a while but not in 200 characters.
You are not getting just the right to stand on a road. You are getting all the infrastructure, protections and services for which others have paid.
There is no fundamental human right or moral right to other peoples money or to benefit from other people’s spending with out their consent.
Mike H-
“Our laws do select for a curtain kind of illegal immigrant which include a high proportion of real criminals…
But everyone ignores inconvenient laws after they become inconvenient enough and the likelihood of getting caught is low enough. But I’m more worried about the people who are waiting patiently.”
Glad to read your last post. I too care much more for the Filipina nurse that’s been waiting 11 years to come legally than I do the MS-13 punk covered ankles to eyebrows with prison tattoos. And I will concede our immigration policy, to date, has effectively been a wink and a nod to those that are desperate. But what’s the best way to address the problem from here on? People like Krikorian or myself say demand E-Verify, build a two tiered fence that could be completed in a matter of months with the political will, and get biometric IDs for those entering and leaving the country. After that we can debate how magnanimous we want to be, I guarantee we will be more generous than any other country in history.
Well, I’m frankly not interested in playing this game where I give you answers and you say I have not, when really you just don’t find my answers convincing or you simply disagree with my responses. That’s fine. Disagree all you want. I’m not going to convince you. If you are interested in learning more about my beliefs that’s one thing, but as far as I’m concerned, I have answered your questions and if you’re not satisfied you can move on.
Well, OK. How should this conversation be held, though? What is the method by which you arrive at the content of the rights? You’ve said that rights are fundamental and God given, but haven’t suggested how we can know which rights God gave us.
I believe rights are discovered through logic and trial and error, much like discovering science. That we get closer to “objective morality” as time goes on. When people talk about “Christian morality,” I understand it as the great strides Christianity made towards objective morality. I’ve been convinced by the logic, self consistency, and appeals to how we treat native strangers that viewing and treating foreigners the same as natives is a new breakthrough towards objective morality.
Social Contracts should protect life, liberty, and private property rights. Beyond that they should be very limited.