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Open Borders and the Pursuit of Happiness

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In a few days, Americans will be celebrating the Declaration of Independence. Amidst the hot dogs and the fireworks, it’s worth pondering the principles that Jefferson enunciated in that document. The Declaration states that people have been endowed with natural, God-given rights and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Let’s focus on that last one. Is the pursuit of happiness a natural, God-given right or not? I say it is. I think Jefferson was right: The pursuit of happiness is certainly not a privilege bestowed on us by government. It’s a right that preexists the existence of government.  So, what is government for? The Declaration provides the answer: to protect the exercise of natural-God given rights, such as the pursuit of happiness.  Is it possible for government to become a destroyer, rather than a protector, of people’s rights? Of course it ...

Immigration Socialism, the Drug War, and a Police State

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I grew up on a farm a few miles outside Laredo, Texas, which is located on the U.S.-Mexico border. Our farm was situated on the Rio Grande, so we irrigated our fields from water taken from the river. When we would drive down to the river to fix our irrigation pump, we could see Mexico and would oftentimes wave at people on the Mexican side. The Border Patrol had the legal authority to trespass onto our farm whenever it wanted. No search warrant was required. They could drive their vehicles all over our farm, and there was nothing we could do to stop them. They never demanded to search our house, but they could have if they had wanted to. If we put a lock on our gate and did not give them a key, they would shoot off the lock and then enter our property. A few months ago, I returned to Laredo and, along with relatives and friends, visited ...

More on America’s Culture of Immigration Death

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Yesterday, I wrote about the deaths of 46 immigrants, who died of dehydration in the back of a tractor-trailer in Texas. The immigrants had illegally entered the United States. They were being illegally transported when they died in the back of that tractor-trailer. As I wrote yesterday, those deaths are a direct consequence of the federal government’s system of immigration controls. If people were free to enter the United States as normal human beings, there wouldn’t be a black market in transportation of illegal immigrants. Under a system of open borders, which we libertarians favor, foreigners would be entering the United States as freely and normally as people cross state borders here within the United States. Not surprisingly, there are a spate of articles lamenting the deaths of those immigrants. But like similar articles written in response to previous deaths of illegal immigrants who have died in the back of tractor-trailers, the people doing the lamenting ...