https://www.facebook.com/mikhail.svetov/posts/10157735188035510
"It has somehow become “en vogue” to conflate libertarianism with market economy, open borders and globalism. To the point that everyone who dares to oppose immigration or trade is colored authoritarian and anti-freedom. I want to accentuate what libertarianism stands for and challenge the idea that open borders when implemented by the government promote freedom.
Libertarianism is not about government policies. It is not even about being fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Sure, It&
#39;s a neat buzzword to toss around when you need to quickly explain that all you want is to leave people to their own devices. But somewhere along the way a lot of libertarians started to take this adage literally and began to rally behind it as if it defined libertarianism.
So, at the risk of losing a few friends, I want to reiterate what libertarianism stands for and what it repudiates.
Libertarianism only concerns itself with the question of the legitimate use of force. When libertarians say something is wrong, they mean the following only: Someone initiated aggression against someone else or his “legitimately owned” property. That’s it. Libertarianism is thus concerned with the ethics of the use of force and is completely agnostic on the issues of open borders, tradition, religion and culture.
This entails that no matter how abhorrent someone’s choices may seem, if they are not coercive they shouldn’t be treated any less than something you find commendable. Homophobic baker who refuses to serve gays is exercising his free will, your “liberal” friend who wants to have the baker prosecuted is the oppressor. Your racist uncle who wants to send his kids to a private, whites-only school is oppressed by the people who made it impossible for him to do. Your insufferable mormon neighbor who home-schools his children about God is less authoritarian than your cool atheist professor who wants to force them to study evolution. Even the Amish community is more in line with libertarian principles than Hong Kong, because their refusal to engage in trade or accept “liberal norms” comes from a place of a voluntary association and not government coercion.
Transgender bathrooms, drugs legalization, teaching kids evolution, all the hot topics that are traditionally associated with individual freedom are not inherently libertarian issues. They are choices. Wherever one&
#39;s personal preference may lie, every non-coercive choice is just as good as the other one. If you believe that in some instances moral interest of one person or group overrides that of another, you have no business calling yourself a libertarian.
This leads me to the contentious topic of immigration. There appears to have been a schism that divided libertarians into leaning towards the alt-right and the yet unnamed alt-left. But while I’ve read plenty of libertarian critiques leveled at the alt-right, almost nothing is being said against the alt-left, despite its globalist version of the world being just as, if not more coercive.
The argument for open borders usually goes something like this: Libertarians are against government in all its manifestations, borders are enforced by the government, thus libertarians must support open borders. This, however, is a fallacy, because it removes the issue from the context of the pervasive government coercion and treats it like an isolated incident.
It doesn’t take into account that as long as people in the recipient country are denied freedom of association, open borders constitute the assault on their freedom. Until the civil rights act and similar laws in Europe are repealed, opening borders benefit one group at the expense of another. It’s the opposite of everything libertarians stand for. It is government coercion..."