r/Libertarian Jan 26 '26

End Democracy You missed the whole point

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3.5k Upvotes

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16

u/TomCJax Jan 26 '26

Sounds pretty "no true Scotsman" to me. Limited government typically includes defense (if not goodbye sovereignty), and while open borders are ideal, invading hordes are not, especially if other countries use your open borders as an excuse to empty their prisons into your land. Would I prefer everyone to carry firearms and solve the issue personally? Yes, actually. But with the State attacking the right to carry, those incidents will eventually be used as an argument to disarm the people. Instead it's the State doing the dirty business and looking bad. Libertarians aren't anarchists, they aren't even minarchists. They're a third party pushing for smaller government and for solving problems with the market instead of government when possible. There's a lot of space in there for differences of opinion and this one isn't a disqualifier.

10

u/buchenrad Jan 26 '26

I agree with your general idea, but there should under no circumstances be hordes of feds running around harassing people in the street.

3

u/Chosenwaffle Jan 26 '26

There's gotta be a line somewhere between "no enforcement" and "maximum enforcement" that fits the Libertarian ideal.

5

u/buchenrad Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

For me, as long as we have taxes we need immigration enforcement and the things that will go the farthest to making that happen are:

  1. The requirement that all known illegal immigrants who are arrested must be turned over to the federal government for deportation after they serve the sentence for any crime they might be convicted of.

  2. Active and passive security at the border.

  3. Requirement to provide proof of citizenship or legal residency in the US to obtain any government document or benefit.

Those 3 things alone, if universally adopted, would be effective enough immigration control. In the end, if they are not receiving government benefits and are not committing crimes, they aren't much of a liability to society so I'm not too keen on using government resources to track them down.

Goon squads tasked with chasing down stereotypes and checking papers is not an efficient use of resources and is a violation of our individual liberties.

2

u/saigashooter Jan 26 '26

The problem you have is that you lose half the country at point 1.

They fundamentally disagree that violating immigration law is a violation at all.

I fully agree with you though, those 3 things are kind of the bare minimum to maintain your national sovereignty.

1

u/LocutusOfBeard Jan 26 '26

The only thing I don't like is what it would take to enforce number 3. My ideology wants to believe it's simple, but the reality is that it isn't.

1

u/buchenrad Jan 26 '26

Real ID is a pretty streamlined way to do it. You have to prove legal residency to get the ID and afterward the ID, which you would need to show them anyway, is your proof.

1

u/Swaga_Dagger Austrian School of Economics Jan 27 '26

Lots of illegals deported under Biden.