Reminder: Our online Zoom conference on open borders kicks off on Monday, September 30, at 7 p.m.-8 p.m. Eastern Time. Register here.
Our job as libertarians is to lead America — and indirectly the world — to freedom. If all we do is settle for reforming the serfdom under which we live, we lead no one to anything. Instead, we become part of the statist problem that has enveloped our lives.
This coming Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, we kick off our newest online conference — “The Case for Open Borders.” We are fully mindful of the fact that when it comes to making the case for open borders, we are swimming against the statist tide that has enveloped our nation, not only in the area of immigration but in virtually every other part of our lives. But if we are going to lead America and the world to freedom, there is no better place to begin than with one of the most important and most controversial issues of our time — immigration.
Our first speaker this coming Monday is Richard Ebeling. Richard is one of the premier Austrian (i.e., free-market) economists in the world. He is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at the Citadel, former president of The Foundation for Economic Education, and former Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College. He is a monthly contributor to our journal Future of Freedom, and he and I co-host our weekly Internet show The Libertarian Angle.
Like the other presenters in our upcoming series of weekly talks, Richard is one of the finest and most competent proponents of open borders in the country. Discovering libertarianism when he was in high school, Richard has been making the case for open borders for decades. After I founded FFF in 1989, among the earliest books we published was The Case for Free Trade and Open Immigration, co-edited by Richard and me.
For 34 years, I have been making a very simple point about America’s system of immigration controls: It has never worked and it will never work. It doesn’t matter who is elected president. It doesn’t matter what reform plan is adopted. This system will never work. It will always produce crisis, chaos, death, suffering, and a massive immigration police state along the border, just as it always has. That’s because it is a socialist system, one based on the core socialist principle of central planning. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, central planning results in “planned chaos.” What better term to describe the result of America’s decades-long socialist immigration-control system?
For 34 years, I have been making another very simple point: There is one — and only one — solution to America’s ongoing, never-ending, perpetual immigration morass. That solution is economic liberty and free markets. That means open borders, the same system we have here inside the United States between the states — that is, the free movements of goods, services, and people across borders. I repeat: This is the only solution to our nation’s immigration morass, which is caused by America’s socialist system of immigration controls.
Regardless of where you stand on this burning issue of our time, I hope you will join us for our newest weekly series of presentations — every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time via Zoom, beginning this coming Monday, September 30. You will hear our nation’s greatest and most competent exponents of open borders make the case for how we lead the nation and the world out of this deadly and destructive immigration morass. And you will have the opportunity to challenge and ask questions of our presenters.
It is our job as libertarians to lead America — and indirectly the world — to freedom. A great place to begin is in the area of immigration.
Reminder: Our online Zoom conference on open borders kicks off on Monday, September 30, at 7 p.m.-8 p.m. Eastern Time. Register here.