printThe excerpt is from my new, WND column, “The Swine (AKA The State) Are AWOL.” If you miss the column on WND.com, you can catch it weekly on Taki’s Magazine, the following day. It’s now up. (May 2)
“Whether they are armed with bombs or bacteria, stopping weaponized individuals from harming others—intentionally or unintentionally—falls perfectly within the purview of the ‘night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory,’ in the words of the philosopher Robert Nozick. …
“A well-policed barrier is the definitive, non-aggressive method of defense against these ailments and afflictions. You don’t attack, arrest, or otherwise molest undesirables; you keep them at bay, away.”
“Libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of human kind to venture wherever, whenever.”
Read “The Swine Are Loose,” (Taki title) to learn what “the quintessential ‘Renaissance woman,’ the late, dazzling, Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq.—expert aviator, health-care policy analyst, marksman, and musician—had to say about “the effects on the health system of the bleeding Southwestern border.”
Update I (May 1): I don’t think I’ve made any dogmatic statements about Objectivist thinking per se. What I will say is this: From all warring Objectivist sources, I’ve read oodles about waging war on the world, but very little that is coherent about stopping the Third World from invading the US.
As I wrote in 2004, “Inviting an invasion by foreigners and instigating one against them are two sides of the same neoconservative coin.” I have seen no evidence that “real” Randians have departed from this neoconservative perversion.
Yes, some Objectivists say borders ought to be protected against dem terrorists, but has any dared to venture that defending the country’s borders may have more than just a security dimension?
By all means, enlighten me (with citations/links, please).
The title of my near-complete book manuscript, Into the Cannibal’s Pot, is meant as a metaphor, and is inspired by Ayn Rand’s wise counsel against prostrating civilization to savagery. I have no doubt she’d have been appalled by the free-for-all on the border with Mexico — and not just because of the possibility of infiltration by a couple of malevolent Muslims.
By all means, provide links to a coherent, Rand-stamped, non-neoconservative view of immigration that does not focus exclusively on security to the detriment of cultural components, which are as essential to the survival of American liberty.
Update II: I don’t buy the allegation that views on immigration among Objectivists are shaped by the validity/legality of Ayn Rand’s visa. Rand was not swayed by positive law. Likewise, Objectivists would—or should—argue from the natural law.
Update IV (May 2): The Hispanic influx into the US is unprecedented. Writes my WND colleague, Vox Day:
“To describe the discourse concerning the mass inflow of foreigners that has taken place over the last 29 years [as] ‘the immigration debate’ is to use a misnomer. What has taken place since the 1980 U.S. census is nothing less than a mass migration of the sort that irretrievably transformed historical civilizations everywhere from Hellenic Greece to Moorish Spain. In 1980, the number of Hispanics living in the United States was 14.6 million. In 2008, it was 45.5 million. Hispanics now account for 15 percent of the total population, and because they are the fastest-growing population segment, the census bureau expects their numbers to increase by a further 67 million by 2050.”
Update V (May 3): Sigh. “The Swine Are AWOL (Or Loose)” was not complicated, at least not to the sensible, straight-thinking.
* The dread diseases delineated in the column happen to hail not from the first world, but from Latin America, with which we have an open border.
* The state has a minimal duty. It is not to “control disease” or test every human being crossing the border, but to enforce a border.
* Currently about a million, poor, deprived, and often depraved, ill people cross over each and every year into the US. By enforcing the border, so that far fewer get through, the number of locals killed or sickened by criminals or carriers will be reduced. Not eliminated; reduced. Is that simple logic unclear? I don’t think so.
* This policy should not be egalitarian, naturally. Canada and Europe are first-world destinations. The diseases making a come-back in the US do not come from North America or the Continent. We have a contiguous border with the first-world Canada, and the third, or second-world Mexico. We do not share a border with Europe, naturally.
Update VII (May 4): Jack writes:
Hi
Seems that the comments are closed for this item, so will send just one of the citations/links you asked for.
Within the narrow confines of the original article, I thought it was in writing but the only reference I could find was Yaron Brook stating that people carrying infectious diseases is one of the groups that would be excluded from coming into the country. (Bottom of the page, last video, within the first minute.)
Cheers
Jack
Excellent article as usual, ma’am. As Jews and Christians, we ought to be familiar with our faiths’ teachings about hospitality and kindness to the stranger. But please tell me where it is written that we are to allow him to effectively break and enter and even fundamentally seek to change the very structure of our household. This latest response from our globalist plutocracy – or lack thereof – only further underscores their egregious disregard for our constitution and their devotion to power at all costs. Frightening!
[Great point.]
Patient Zero: Found.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/Porky_pig.jpg
Shalom Ilana,
I have written to you before and enjoy your thought provoking columns. (Not to mention your vocabulary which sends me to the dictionary!) And I have a B.A. and Master’s Degree! So much for “American Education”.
Regarding the Swine Flu. How can the “head” of HOMELESS Security and her illegal usurper in “thief” not close the borders because the flu is already here? What about the daily border jumpers who are continually contaminating us by the hours? I hate to say it, but the USA is going the way of the old SA. Regardless, even though I don’t agree with all of your opinions I look forward to reading your columns and blog.
D’Rishat Shalom,
Steven
NYC
Please let us return to a place where logic and simple science have at least an equal voice to pc ranting. We seem to be turning out a class of people that simply cannot grasp simple logic. It is incumbent upon us to help those less fortunate, but we must first keep ourselves strong enough in health and economic well being to bear this burden. The conflict seems to be liberals want to tell me when I am strong enough, and I demand the right to make that decision for myself. Charity begins at home. I help people I know, and without fail, they pay it forward. No one has the right to force me to do otherwise, but the powers in government are radically changing this. I hope the electorate will show a flash of logical brilliance in the next election cycle. Keep the faith.
You wrote “But thumping majorities within rarified libertarian, Objectivist and loony left circles disagree.” This surprised me, as no Objectivist that I know disagrees.
Then you wrote “When Objectivists eulogized the…” and I followed the link to to the Atlas Society, which is definitely not the home of Objectivists. Just because they state: “The Center for Objectivism
We are the most respected independent source of information about Objectivism” does not make it true. Rarified indeed — so rarified that there’s no semblance of Objectivist principles left.
I’ve read your articles on and off for some time and am surprised that you would cite that crowd as your source for Objectivist thinking, rather than the Ayn Rand Institute itself.
Actually, the first thing a search for “immigration” on ARI turns up is this.
One reason ARI may take that position of “Opposition to immigration is un-American” is that Rand herself, as they say, overstayed her visa.
I made it back home today after the TSA stopped my bringing yogurt on the airplane (a threat) but did allow some hummus (so they are not biased against the Middle East!). I doubt an agency like Homeland Insecurity could help even if it were willing to do so. Even when there are competent government employees who try to enforce border security, they just wind up getting prosecuted. Ahh – if only we could have a plague that would wipe out stupid people and leave civilization intact!
Maybe Objectivists are pro-open borders not so much because Ayn Rand overstayed her visa, but because of the contribution she (and von Mises) made to America. From David Boaz’ article Ayn Rand at 100:
In 1976, 45 million Americans were inoculated for swine flu and 32 died due to the inoculations. Switching to the immigration topic, it is near certain that the Progressive and Socialistic movements in the late 1800’s / early 1900’s were politically fueled by unabsorbed Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Current post-1965 immigrants are also fueling governmental expansion. So while highly talented “technical/entrepreneurial” immigrants are a plus to the US, bringing in a large population of uneducated “coolies” (and their extended families) is a means of self-destruction. It is part of the typical over-reliance on abstract “principles” that lead open-borders libertarians to this quasi-suicidal stance. I do not blame the Latinos who get mixed signals from the Americans (“… here are jobs and welfare but you are violating a law we do not intend to enforce…”) while following their own self-interest but there are policies that are just impractical. If liberty and property have meaning, they should be defended and preserved from a practical point of view and hence it is necessary to have a border that allows healthy productive people to enter in limited numbers consistent with the furtherance of growth and maintenance of liberty.
I would submit that if a “technical/entrepreneurial” immigrant spends his off-hours agitating for the tribe at the expense of the host society that let him in, he or she is in fact a net minus. Keep in mind that each of these techies will probably take a spouse from the old country or culture and raise a large family. If the parents raise these children in the attitude stated above, each one has become a liability.
I see no reason why we shouldn’t have a 10-year moratorium on all immigration, with a permanent moratorium on 3rd-world immigration.
Again, the importance of language: The long, detailed procedure you went through to become a lawful immigrant to these shores cannot be compared to the mass migration whose components will eventually be rewarded with a “path to citizenship.”
I strongly suspect most Americans detest, and would vote down, such rewards for unlawful entry. But the issue is never voted upon by the American people; even if it were, the leftists/elites would take judicial and other action to overturn the results of a plebiscite they dislike (think CA’s Prop 8.) I’m not sure what the solution is, though the problem is painfully obvious.
I sent these links to JF. Hope something comes out of it. I wish I had more time to look into it…
Seems compelling…. looks like Tamiflu is ineffective against the current strain… it wouldn’t surprise me if these facts were known by our gov and pharma……
1940
http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/historiesofcomsn/section2.htm
CLAYTON LOOSLI, M.D.
Dr. Clayton Loosh was an Idahoan who attended the University of Chicago. He worked closely with Dr. O. H. Robertson. He was particularly helpful to the Commission in developing effective means of delivering virus in suspension for experimental challenges in human beings. He was also instrumental in developing the “glycolizers” that were used to create suspension of pRopylene glycol in the air. These were widely used at Camp Detrick for the protection of the staff who were working with particularly lethal agents.
Later, after he became Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, he continued to be an active participant in the affairs of the Commission. He worked with mice, trying to produce a controlled
antigenic change in the virus. He also obtained interesting, and somewhat surprising, data on the effect of Los Angeles smog on mice infected with influenza virus. At one point, it appeared that the smog actually helped the
animals, rather than hurt them. He was a very friendly person with broad interests who was exceptionally well qualified to be dean of a medical school.
1944
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194403/hill
The possibility of stopping the viruses in mid-air is of great interest. On this side of the Atlantic we have little concept of the importance of such a control, say in air-raid shelters where thousands of people have had to sleep night after night. In the British shelters the emphasis has been mainly on the control of cross-infections in operating rooms and in hospital wards. It has been found that small droplets such as are expelled in coughing can float in the air for many hours, even days. Arthur T. Edwards recently found that 10 percent of an original amount of influenza virus can remain alive on blankets for days or weeks. It is difficult to know whether the persistence of influenza in certain households is due to this domestication of the virus or to its constant introduction as active members of the family carry home the infection from outside contacts. It is the
killing of these droplets that is urgently important. For this, two promising methods have been found: the use of ultraviolet light and of germicidal mists or aerosols.
The theory of their action is simply that a small amount of a chemical which is known to be germicidal be finely dispersed into the atmosphere. Water was not a satisfactory solvent, partly because of its rapid evaporation, and for that reason propylene glycol, a pretty name with which everyone will probably soon be familiar, was used to carry a number of germicides, including Dakin’s solution. The English, hard-pressed to improve conditions, in their air-raid shelters, which sometimes, as in Bristol, were in deep caves or old tunnels, used aerosols with evident success.
By the crab-like motion which characterizes so many scientific advances, it was then found that propylene glycol alone was highly effective. As little as one part of this substance, in the form of an aerosol, was active in at
least several million volumes of air. Its effectiveness against both bacteria and viruses was established in this country by Oswald II. Robertson and his associates at the University of Chicago and later confirmed in
England.
1942
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932876,00.html
How did it work? Respiratory disease bacteria float about in tiny droplets of water breathed, sneezed and coughed from human beings. The germicidal glycol also floats in infinitesimally small particles. Calculations showed
that if droplet had to hit droplet, it would take two to 200 hours for sterilization of sprayed air to take place. Since sterilization took place in seconds, Dr. Robertson concluded that the glycol droplets must give off
gas molecules which dissolve in the water droplets and kill the germs within them.
http://www.healthnz.co.nz
Murray Laugesen MD
Public health physician
History
That propylene glycol (PG) may protect users of the e-cigarette from airborne bacterial and viruses dates back to World War II. ‘Air Germicide’, a story in Time magazine Nov 16, 1942, reported the research of Dr. Oswald
Hope Robertson at Chicago’s BillingsHospital. He showed that half a part per million of PG in air could kill bacteria and viruses in that air within seconds. He found PG could protect mice from influenza virus, and that keys could well tolerate living in air containing PG. On the face of it, e-cigarette users might indeed be better off….actually confers immediate short term positive benefits, by reducing the risk of its users inhaling
live viruses and bacteria from room air. This is mind-blowing enough, but could its possible benefits also protect others close by? Is the e-cigarette more than a tool for reducing harm? Is it also potentially a talisman to ward off infection?
Protecting air travelers
Air travel is a weak point in defending ourselves internationally from fatal respiratory infections. Bird flu and pandemic influenza can spread globally at the speed of jet travel, as one infected person can infect many others
through air-conditioned, re-circulated air. Governments are spending millions on how to contain or just even slow spread of such epidemics.
Perhaps PG should be seriously considered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol
Studies completed by Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson of University of Chicago’s Billings Hospital have shown propylene glycol inhalation may prevent pneumonia, influenza and other respiratory diseases. Time Magazine – Air
Germicide
Cases of propylene glycol poisoning are related to either inappropriate intravenous use or accidental ingestion by children.[6] The oral toxicity of propylene glycol is very low. In one study, rats were provided with feed
containing as much as 5% PG over a period of 104 weeks and they showed no
apparent ill effects.[7] Because of its low chronic oral toxicity, propylene glycol is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use as a direct food additive.
Serious toxicity will occur only at extremely high intakes over a relatively
short period of time that result in plasma concentrations of over 4 g/L.[8]
Such levels of ingestion would not be possible when consuming reasonable
amounts of a food product or dietary supplements containing at most 1 g/kg
propylene glycol.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/innovators/bio_robertson2.html
Dr. Robertson’s laboratory then undertook a double program of field studies in hospitals, army barracks, and industrial installations and laboratory experiments in an effort to develop methods of combating the spread of air-borne infections, which had become an exceedingly important source of attrition of human effectiveness during the war. Studies were carried out on the physical chemistry of aerosols containing viable infectious agents.
Effects of various parameters on the viability of these agents were studied and the mechanism of air sterilization by chemical agents was worked out in detail. Such studies showed that the previously held theory that bactericidal action was exerted through collision of aerosol particles of germicide with aerosol particles of the infectious agent was erroneous, and that the actual mechanism of action required action of the bactericidal agent through the vapor phase. New agents were developed which were enormously more effective than previous materials, and which were shown to be without toxic effects to human populations. The physical chemistry of aerosol vapor interactions was studied, and a number of fundamental papers were published in this field. While the use of chemical air sterilization was developed to the point where it became a practical measure, it never
proved possible to obtain clear-cut epidemiological data demonstrating
beyond any question that these measures would reduce respiratory disease in ordinary situations of human habitation. Nevertheless, the fundamental
advances obtained in the course of these studies have been useful in a
variety of ways, in both pure and applied science.
Here’s another one….
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jam.2007.0626
Here’s some more…
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/propylene_glycol_red.pdf
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jam.2007.0626
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx
ron@esmoke.net
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2007/oct/sen-boxer-halt-immigration-enforcement Illegal immigration can be summed up in the phrase, Democrats want the votes, Republicans want the cheap labor
The problem with attempting to control disease at the border is that the only way to prevent transmission across a border is to prevent anyone from crossing it. (And some animals, maybe.)
Many diseases have long latency periods and go undetected while the exposed person unwittingly spreads it around.
I agree with securing the border, absolutely. But I don’t think it would help control the spread of a virulent disease like influenza. By the time we even realize there is a problem, it is already being spread all over the globe.
I also find it interesting that we check legal immigrants for communicable diseases, but not travelers. Not that I would want to submit to a battery of tests at the hands of the state when returning from Canada or Mexico, unless there was a verified threat. (And I question whether the current alarm could really be considered a verified threat.)
If there really is a threat from a deadly pandemic, anyone on both sides of any border might be subject to quarantine before being allowed to cross, and it would be difficult to defend objections to the policy. And the threat would increase the importance of sealing borders.
I think the presence or absence of a pandemic is only tangentially related to the importance of controlling the borders — the reasons for having borders in the first place are reasons enough to control them.
I also think we shouldn’t be too timid to assert that one valid reason for having a border and controlling it is the way people think and how they live. We have every right to assert that those who reject our culture and our view of individual rights through limited government are not welcome to live here. It’s probably a forlorn hope to wish for such a thing though, when many in our own society hold those values in contempt.
The bigger any organization is, the worse it screws up anything it tries to do. The more powerful that organization is, the worse the effects of the screw-ups are bound to be. If our government ever decides to secure the borders, it will probably be a new kind of nightmare, ineffective and horrible for the law-abiding. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, I’m just saying that when it is done, it’ll be done for the wrong reasons, by the wrong people, and hurting those that are supposed to be protected. That’s just my disillusionment showing, but I’d bet money on it.
Excellent piece, as always.
On a side note, let me interject something “funny”, um, well, sort of:
Imagine how we in Alberta must be feeling right now. We have a supposedly conservative government, but it’s conservative in name only, but actually governs like any socialist, nanny-state government. The premier (translation: governor) is a pig farmer by his occupation.
So you’re comparison of swine and government is spot-on, at least here in Alberta.
Simple.
Say that someday we have a draft. (God forbid but certainly not unimaginable.)
All eligible citizens get called up to serve and protect their country…
Who’s left to continue their lives here not only unimpeded but enriched by a more available job market?
Illegals of course.
How is that right exactly???