Walter Block has some sensible advice for freedom lovers, which I can safely second (not a given, mind you). Do as Walter says, with one caveat: Vote for your Libertarian state representative, provided—and only if—he is not a “La-Raza Libertarian“—i.e., opposes unfettered immigration and vows to stop the bleeding on the Southwestern border to the best of his abilities and commensurate with the powers delegated to him. Moreover, his avowal to do so must exclude Genghis Bush’s Guest-Worker Program.
I stated in “America’s Open House” that, “as a proponent of states’ rights and decentralization, instantiated in the Ninth and 10th Amendments, I rarely wish to see federal solons usurp the states. Local police ought to be tasked with immigration enforcement.” While immigration officially comes under federal jurisdiction, desperate localities are indeed stepping in to protect their beleaguered constituents. Libertarians ought to welcome such usurpation, especially when it’s to protect life, liberty, and property. Is this not the flip side of Jeffersonian interposition and nullification, whereby states beat back the federal occupier by voiding unconstitutional federal laws? Here, municipalities and states enforce hitherto-unenforced laws that protect lives and livelihoods.
For the rest, over to Walter:
“I really cannot support the federal Libertarian Party. For they, too, just like Paul “Stabilizer” Krugman, want to pull troops out of Iraq, but not bring them home either; instead, send them to yet other foreign countries, where, presumably, there [sic] imperialist services are in greater need… How the principled have fallen. It is one thing for the Democrats, a la Paul “Stabilizer” Krugman to support such a policy. But for Libertarians to do so? Murray Rothbard must be spinning in his grave at the prospect, after he spent so much time and energy trying to inculcate some modicum of principle into this group.
No, I cannot in good conscience ask anyone to support the federal Libertarian Party. Not, at least, until they rescind this horrid policy. (Whenever I get a fund raising letter from them, I reply that I will contribute, but only when and if they publicly climb down from this eminently anti-libertarian viewpoint.) The state libertarian parties, still, are a different matter. In my view, the rot has not set in there to anywhere near the same degree. To the contrary, at the state LP conventions I have addressed, I have found the rank and file to be pretty sensible on all issues, certainly including foreign policy.
So, two cheers for the LP at the state level, and none for them at the federal.”
