The Wall and Borders

I have had a lot of frustration lately around the topic of walls and borders. In the Libertarian spaces I poke around, there is this general idea that having a wall and enforcing borders is against NAP (Non Aggression Policy). It took me a while to formulate why this is a load of shit, so now I'm going to try to explain.

Let us start by evaluating what is meant by aggression. In the context of NAP, it refers to the initiation or threat of force against an individual or their property. This would be like threatening to jail someone if they do not give up money or taking land from someone, forcing a sale, anything where resistance to the act would result in some form of harm or repercussion. Sounds reasonable so far.

The problem arises around property rights. Assume I own a plot of land. I have more land than I currently use. Someone rolls on up and starts setting up a home on the unused land. Since it is my property, I have the right to remove them from the land I own. Of course I have an option to sell or rent the land, but that does not mean I should or have to. I as an individual doing this would be fine. Even if I threaten them, it is fine because they have already violated my rights by trying to take my land without permission.

So now let us assume we have a community of people. This community of people all own various plots in a region of land. They decide they do not want certain people coming into their region without vetting them to their standards. They even go so far as to deny passage through the region without some form of vetting to ensure their own safety. This is the concept of a country having borders. If someone attempts entry or passage by attempting to circumvent these rules the owners of the land put in place, that is a violation of property rights. The only difference right now is it is private citizens doing this rather than elected officials.

Continuing on with the same idea, the people now create a militia to patrol the land and make sure people everyone has agreed need to be vetted before entry are actually either vetted or not within the region. Are we still good? After all, it is people protecting their private property. I still say yes, this is perfectly fine. People have a right to protect their property, even as a group.

So now the militia finds someone their that should not be. They own no property, which means they are on someone else's property. They refuse to leave, so the militia forces them off private property. We still good? If you think we have gone too far, just remember we are assuming everyone is under a unanimous decision and rather than functioning as an individual they are instead just a group with the same idea helping each other out. If an individual can do it, so can a group all working towards the same goal.

Now imagine that someone in the middle with no bordering land decides that they want to let everyone and anyone in. As a result, an individual decides to trespass to get to their destination. This still violates rights of the other landowners who did not consent to that travel across their land. Is it okay to use force to stop their travel? Sure. It is still a violation of rights and people protecting their own rights. What happens if they make it to the individual within who said it was okay? Well, this is the whole sanctuary city conundrum. If the militia goes onto that person's land to extract the violator and throw him out, are they not in turn violating now two people's rights? Well, the trespasser already violated the rights of others. To allow a person that commits a crime to go free so long as where they stay is okay with it is the same as endorsing the crimes themselves. Upon violating the rights of another person, in my opinion you already forfeited your own rights. In the same turn, to violate the rights of someone else who did not do anything wrong in action does not seem right. We could end up with a group imposing their will over the individual. Some may consider trespassing to not be a big deal, so why pursue it. That sets a precedence of there being a certain condition that could be added to make it okay. Perhaps they murder or rape someone along the way. This creates reactionary laws and conditions that messed up a lot of our judiciary system in the first place. Simple black and white, the person committed a crime and those who were wronged have a right to have it made right to them. So my conclusion is it is still okay to extract the person who trespassed.

After all that, the bordering people and majority of internal supported in the region decide, let's build a wall. If we wall off the region, it will be harder for people trying to trespass to actually trespass. Sounds good, right? Since it is their land, they can build whatever they want. Walls, fences, moats, or a billboard that says "Go away, <derogatory term>!" It is their property, so it is their choice.

The US is similar to this. The difference is the border land and points of entry are government owned, so every citizen in a sense owns it. Right now we have people saying open up all the borders, people saying shut it down, and the majority of people saying we need to reform the entry criteria and evaluate border security. As the majority of the country is not for open borders, it makes sense the borders are not open. To impose the will that they need to be open would be to violate all the stakeholders that disagree and under current contract with how the governments work. True, we never actually agreed to it, but there is a little caveat in law people seem to disregard even though it is pretty much common law as well.

Implied Consent is the idea that you clearly see the requirements for something and by continuing or proceeding, you consent. This is why a place like Disney does not need you to sign an agreement to search you before entering their parks, they have police out front and searching equipment while at the same time you are under no obligation to enter. Implied consent is used quite frequently, like when you are in an area with a sign that says there are security cameras, you are consenting to being recorded. Living in a country falls under pretty much the same idea. As you continue to live here and proceed with life, you are implying consent to the laws of the land. While there may be the case made that it is because there is no where else to go for what you want, that would be like complaining you cannot buy land because all the land is already owned. Touch luck.

This does not mean I think everything is fine and dandy or that we should not fight back against the things we disagree with. This is purely the reason that I think right now the best option is to be diplomatic about things. As it stands now, it seems like the majority at least leans in my direction of enforcing borders to protect private property to some degree. When it rolls in the opposite direction, I will fight it. I just would not claim someone to not be libertarian just because they don't want to check people entering the land or if they want more screening.

My point is, whether I protect my property as an individual or a group, it is still a protection of private property.

Soleimani Killed and Everything Going on in Iran

Everything going on in the news has been a little crazy. There are fears of a World War III, being drafted, retaliation, and so on. I wanted to hold off saying anything until giving some things time to unfold. The problem I see is that it seems all of a sudden, people are acting like experts in foreign affairs and politics of the middle east. I'll clarify one thing first, I am not an expert in foreign affairs and I probably couldn't even list off half the countries of the middle east, let alone tell you anything about their politics. As a result, I was unsure of what to expect.


Things are fairly confusing with all the propaganda being considered truth making its way through the information chains via celebrities and over-eager news outlets. It is hard to decide which sources are actually true, which is why I think most Americans need to pull back on their opinions. It's a little scary to see how easily people can jump aboard narratives and throw out common sense. I'll add a twitter thread I came across on Reddit that made a lot of sense to me.

Currently the US media is trying to blow this up like the biggest story ever. Sure it is high profile, but it is not anything new to our general relations with this area. Why we even have so many troops there seems a bit of a mystery to most. While many would claim this is all Bush's fault or something along those lines, a simple check online shows that we have been involved with Iran since World War II. So back in the 1940's we have had dealings with them and it does not look like at any point could we really consider relations good.

In the current times, relations appear very tense. As with everything we do over there, the US is met with both cheers and jeers. This is the nature of even appearing to pick sides. It is still unclear what will result, but I personally doubt the possibility of a new World War. Tensions seem to always be high in that area and due to how unstable the region as a whole seems, the unexpected could possibly happen.

While I do not think this was the right form of intervention, I also do not think that the US should just roll over when pushed. I would prefer we pulled all of our troops from every country with such strained relations and let it be dealt with locally. I do not think it is America's place to be the global police nor do I think it is worth sinking billions of dollars to manipulate foreign affairs. This money goes either through the military funding or "Emergency Aid" which is really just a quick way to fund "our guy." Our lack of understanding of the people and all the nuances almost always guarantees we will cause more problems in the long run. If we stop interfering, the people with the right knowledge and the adequate amount of power may actually stand a chance at fixing something. Alternatively things could get way worse, but then at least there may be an actual reason for us to go back there and fight.

Just for the sake of completeness if my assumptions are wrong, what would happen if WWIII happened? When I was watching a video by Tim Pool, he made a good point I did not consider. Warfare has changed a lot. Wars are fought with technology. We have a never ending cyber war with governments and companies. In the IT world these are called APT (Advanced Persistent Threat). We also have drones, smart bombs, missiles with lots of capabilities, and so on. So the battlefield has changed drastically and there is no telling exactly where the major face of it would be waged. I also think it is a fair assumption to say that there may be many sides to it with constant challenging and retaliation as groups try to sneak in their own motives to work towards. I think there could even be an argument made that we have already been at WWIII for a while and it just has an ever changing landscape with no real sides to it.

Regardless of what happens, I still think we should work towards just getting our troops out of the area and as far out of the middle east as possible. It is my opinion that our interference has destabilized things and our continued interference makes it worse. I also think that when we pull out, things will get far worse in the immediate future but much better in the long run. It is unavoidable for things to fix themselves without some tragedy.