I agree. Did you actual take his classes in person? I watched a lot of him online. He is an amazing person and would have done wonders as a voice of reason at a time when there was little (and things have only gotten worse).
Its nice to meet a fellow traveler. It is a rare thing when someone agrees with me about anything, especially politics. I wish Ron Paul got the attention Sanders did when the Republicans where straight out denying him any chance to be the nominee and he was completely stonewalled by all the MSM like he didn't even exist and wasn't running, right and left leaning both. And that is why I love Trump. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with his specific policies or views - all the MSM hates him and that is the greatest assurance he is not corrupt and wants to do right by the US People. I turned one of my sisters into a libertarian, but she went all crazy and rogue on me.
Badnarik had great ideals tempered by reality. My sister and her brand of volunteerism doesn't account for reality and requires everyone to be on board and think alike for her magical utopia to work. Its just like socialism in that it sounds good until you factor in people and reality. Or any other utopian philosophy. As long as people are diverse in thought there will never be utopia. The best we can do is just be as free as possible. And being free doesn't mean good. The very cornerstone of freedom is people being able to do what I despise and I can't do shit about it. Regardless of the greater good, or nonsensical ideals like good. The only thing that is good is people being able to be as free as possible, even when its really bad for everyone. Why? Diversity of thought.
"Once governments are given the authority to restrict the liberty of some sane adults for what it considers their physical or moral welfare, there is no principled stopping point in terms of what governments will have the authority to prohibit. The consequence will be that virtually anything which anyone holds of most value may become prohibited to them on grounds of its being judged immoral or dangerous to them. There are practically no forms of activity in which sane adults like to engage that others are not able to find reasons to condemn as morally or physically bad for those who engage in them. This ranges from drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco, to eating certain types of food, to not taking exercise, to taking too much, engaging in dangerous sports, practising certain religions, not practising any religion, reading books on science, etc. Unless government draws the line at only prohibiting conduct that harms others against their will, no member of society can be secure in being able to do or have anything they most want and value." --David Conway
Michael was fantastic at one-liners and explaining things in short, indisputable talking points everyone could understand. This was remarkable because one of the hardest things about presenting libertarianism to the masses has been the fact that it's not easy to do that.
I not only took one of his classes in person, I helped organize one.
I really believe that if the 2012 election had been like the 2016 election Ron Paul would have one the nomination. He was head of his time and opened the window for an outsider like Trump but never got the chance to go through it himself. 2016 was indeed the perfect time for an outsider like Ron. He would have been the Sanders of the Republican Party.
I'm not a fan of Trump, although I did prefer him to Hillary. I personally think the Trump love based on how loathed he is by the MSM and the simple fact that he is an outsider in and of itself is misguided, because what should matter are his principles and at the end of the day he does not have libertarian principles.
I know a lot of libertarians like your sister who got introduced to libertarianism, usually via Ron Paul, and then went rogue and embraced unrealistic and annoying "volunteerism." A lot of them did it because they were so dishearten by what happened to Ron in 2008 that they were like "fuck the system!" and decided they wanted nothing to do with it. What annoys me about this is that a lot of them, including people who volunteered and even worked for Ron's 2008 campaign, wouldn't even vote for him in 2012 even though they supported him because they had this silly idea that voting "supports the state." This actually might have made a difference somewhere like New Hampshire with so many Free State Project volunteerists.
And when you talk to these people they're all about "can't we just handle things in communities among ourselves instead of relying on government" and I asked how they'd do that and they say "well, we'd get together and make decisions as a community..." and I'm like "YOU JUST DESCRIBED GOVERNMENT AT THE MOST BASIC LEVEL!"
Meanwhile, they don't account for the different views, cultures, races, etc. that make up this country and the world and this ultimately destroys the hippie idea they have that such a world would be possible. How are they going to decide things with a global community that includes people who support Sharia Law and don't want anything to do with such a system?
Anyway, those are my two cents.
Libertarians want to open the border because borders are the basis of a central national power. It's key to performing censuses that allow you to measure and use manpower and economic power. It's what allows governments to discriminate between what man power belongs to them and can be controlled and what man power belongs to someone else. The basis of deciding who gets to use your infrastructure and market pools to develop their potential as individuals and which people are excluded.
It's why the opposite of a libertarian state (China) exercises border control of citizen traffic between different provinces and cities.
I think that's basically true. On a more basis level it's the "freedom of movement" philosophy in libertarians that people should be able to travel wherever they want and borders prevent that.
That said, I'm a libertarian that actually supports borders. What I remind other libertarians when they question me on this is the importance of sovereignty in protecting and preserving liberty. What is a country without borders? It doesn't exist and ultimate at that point you'll have a move towards a global government that will be more overbearing and difficult to reform and stop than a more localized government. Basically, you'll get
1984. There's a reason many of the world's most powerful and connected people support open borders: because they want global government and that's the first step. NAFTA, the UN... all of these are moves towards global government. If you look at the history of our country alone there has been a move towards the consolidation of power at a higher and more central level. At the state of our country almost all power resided at the state and local level. Now it's the federal level and we see the problems it's causes. The next logical step is the global level. The problem is many other libertarians have this very Utopian view of an open borders policy where everyone just lives in a free world and has personal sovereignty so they advocate open borders policies thinking it will lead there without realizing they're falling into the globalist trap.
