Judge Napolitano shows why the libertarian left is ruining their country

Although I'm generally a fan of Judge Napolitano on many issues, his latest essay on the 'migrant caravans' crossing Mexico is quite disappointing in its naivete. Like most of the left, he seems to believe that humans are interchangeable, and that millions of Africans and Mexicans can be transplanted into the USA successfully provided that they are willing to work and integrate.

Sadly, this is not the case. He's a classic example of how libertarians are breeding their own ideology into oblivion.

"Nationalism and its cousin nativism are dangerous attitudes that have come and gone almost cyclically throughout American history. They foster an arrogant aura about Americans who embrace them — we are more deserving than you because our ancestors got here before you or yours did — and they cause fear and hatred of foreign-born people."

Napolitano would be quite surprised to learn that the U.S. Constitution seems to imply nativism. Just read the preamble ("secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"). Also:

• Japan, Pakistan, Israel (cough cough), China, Korea, Saudi Arabia and a host of other countries are nativist in this sense. 
• It is not clear that these are 'dangerous' attitudes, given that Japan and Korea are the most functional, socially cohesive, safe and prosperous nations on earth.
• Why shouldn't the descendants of those who fought in the Revolutionary War (or WW1/WW2) have greater claim to being American?
• What evidence is there that nationalism causes fear and hatred? 

"They also lull one into the lazy mental habit of judging the moral worth of people not on the basis of their personal choices and fidelity to first principles but on the basis of their membership in groups marked by immutable characteristics of birth, such as people’s place of birth."

• The only 'immutable' characteristic listed is 'place of birth'. In Napolitano's world, there is no such thing as IQ, disease susceptibility (e.g,. Tay Sachs, sickle cell), infectious disease exposure, etc.
• Why do only 'immutable' characteristics count? What about partially mutable ones like homophobia, misogyny, or general cultural traits (e.g., honor-based norms of dispute resolution).

Like most commentators, Napolitano is unaware of the difference between judging individuals and judging populations. The law of large numbers implies that samples tend to take on the characteristics of the population they are drawn from as they get larger. We might not be able to judge a single Syrian, but we can certainly draw inferences about the sort of people that we will get when we import 50,000 of them.

Import 50,000 people from a low IQ country that suffers from high levels of birth defects due to inbreeding (e.g., Pakistan), and you get a horde of immigrants with low IQs and high levels of birth defects. Pakistanis in the UK (when they aren't raping young white children), are marrying their cousins.

"This habit rejects a founding American principle that we are all created equal and endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Our judge has apparently read a 'right to immigrate' into the Constitution. 

Furthermore, people are not created equal in the sense of possessing similar talents, proclivities, physical characteristics, or cultural norms. When considering immigration, these characteristics are of the utmost importance, which is why the US immigration system used to keep track of how immigrants from various countries performed.

"And natural law teaches that human rights come from our humanity — not from the government — and they adhere in everyone, not just Americans."

There is no natural right to migrate.

"I have argued in this column that the right to travel is a natural right, even though it was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court recognized it as such. "

Travel and immigration are two very different things. One changes a society permanently.

"And the Constitution itself, from which all federal powers derive, does not even delegate to the federal government any power over immigration — i.e., who can come here. It just gives it power over naturalization, i.e., who can become a citizen here."

Wait, so this is a division of powers issue now? That just pushes the issue to the state governments, and doesn't really address the issue of natural rights.

"people who want to work should be allowed in. "

Why? No reasons given?

Only an idiot believes that there is only a single issue in any given policy debate. As a judge, Napolitano should know about policy analysis, including such notions as 'minimal impairment'. Are there truly no other interests at stake? Here's a suggestion:

• the interests of existing citizens in determining who is eligible to become a member of their society
• the interests of workers in controlling the amount of foreign labor entering the market
• the interests of the federal government in controlling the yearly intake of new citizens. (Napolitano seems to forget that the children of these temporary non-naturalized workers are deemed US citizens).
• national security interests
• public health interests, particularly relating to the spread of communicable diseases
• the interests of women who will suffer sexual abuse at the hands of migrants from misogynistic cultures (e.g., the mass attacks in Cologne, or the massive child rape problem in the UK).
• the interests of homosexuals who will be on the receiving end of violence from homophobic migrants (e.g., the Pulse nightclub).

Immigrants change the culture of their new nation. This is particularly true of immigrants with high birth rates, such as Arabs, Somalis, Pakistanis, and Mexicans.

Many of these immigrants come from cultures that are tribal and honor-based. This leads to major problems when these people enter a culture based on dignity and the rule of law. Many others (e.g., Hindus) come from countries riddled with corruption.

Napolitano is naïve enough to believe in the 'magic dirt' theory: that any person transplanted to the USA can become American if they wish. He believes that people steeped in tribalism or collectivism are going to integrate into American society. At the same time he condemns 'nativism', he doesn't seem to have much concern for tribalism, identity politics and in-group preferences among the migrants.

He seems to be unaware of the large number of third world migrants engaged in fraud, such as the Somalis in Minnesota who are sending 10+ million USD a year back to Somali through the airports. This money was stolen from US taxpayers through phony child daycare schemes. Let's not even mention the refugees and immigrants who sign up for welfare benefits and then high-tail it back to their own countries.

"The Wall Street Journal have demonstrated indisputably that most of the work that immigrants will do is work most Americans eschew. "

Bull. First, the WSJ is biased and full of political hacks who believe in open borders. Second, the Center for Immigration Studies and other proper research institutes have challenged this claim.

"Their work not only benefits them but also produces family stability and increases wealth, which finds its way into the stream of commerce."

Family stability? In the USA? What's the Hispanic single parenthood rate?

Increases wealth? Has Napolitano never heard of remittances?

Notice the concepts here:

1. benefits to the migrants
2. family stability (presumably the migrant families)
3. increases in wealth (whose?)
4. the stream of commerce

Nowhere do we find any consideration of the impacts on Americans, including workers who are competing for these unskilled jobs. 

"We who call ourselves Americans are nearly all descended from immigrants."

Immigrants are those who move from one society to another. A person who arrives in a country with no infrastructure and who builds that infrastructure is a 'settler'.

Even if his claim were true, it does not follow that a country must always and forever welcome immigration. The fact that there were immigrants in the past does not imply that there cannot be quality control and quotas in the present.

"Yet when our forebears arrived here, they were met simply by prejudice and government indifference."

The early colonists were met by government indifference? Which government?

Sadly, Napolitano has revealed himself to be a charlatan on the subject of immigration. Not only is he completely incompetent at policy analysis, but he is dripping with contempt for the interests of current citizens and permanent residents.

It is interesting that Mises, Rothbard, Rockwell and Hoppe (all libertarians) do not agree with open borders. Mises was at pains to emphasize the importance of culture, for instance. Napolitano merely ignores culture altogether, as if it makes no difference.

A basic question for the Judge:

"Why do you think that a philosophy of liberty, property rights, and the rule of law will survive the mass immigration of people from cultures that do not believe in any of these?"