From: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Subject: right to emigrate == freedom? was:Clinton Office Requests Comments
Originator: ervan@cs.rice.edu
Reply-To: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Organization: Rice University
Distribution: inet
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 21:16:03 GMT


mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
|> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) attempts to mock me, but shows his ignorance instead:
|> >mrh@centerline.com (Huben the Authoritarian) saith:
|> >>Nobody is compelling Joe Richguy to do anything: he has chosen to live in the
|> >>USA and abide by our government.  Nobody is pointing a gun at him and
|> >>commanding him to stay here where by mutual agreement we are taxed.
|> >
|> >What "mutual agreement?" I was born here, now I'm told "be taxed or leave".
|> >Where's the mutuality in that?
|> 
|> If you were born here, then your parents freely made the choice for you.
|> At any time, you can select another nation to live in.  There is no secret
|> about the fact that if you choose to live here you must abide by the laws:
|> every immigrant explicitly agrees to that.  Those laws are created by the
|> process of mutual agreement called representative democracy.

Without intending to comment on the larger argument in this thread,
this one point always struck me as a deep issue for libertarianism.

First, the notion of parents making binding decisions for their children
is problematic at best.  The children never consented.  My life is my
own to run, not my parents.  If they had sold me into slaverly to pay
their debts, I would categorically reject that contract as being binding
on me.  With your reasoning, do you accept Burke's argument about the
right of Kings?  In short he said that at some point in British history
all of the barons pledged their fealty and that of all of their descendents
to the king forever.  Their descendents were not amused.  On another tack,
if I am obligated by my parents' decisions then am I also not responsible
for their crimes?  By this I mean that if you reject the notion of each
individual being born with his own freedom and instead inheriting his
parents' lot, how can you separate parentally imposed restrictions
(e.g. voting Republicrat ;-) and parentally generated obligation.
Do Caucasians owe the U.S. back to the Indians because of their 
ancestors crimes?  I think not.

Second, point one not withstanding, the underlying point you make is a 
good one: what is the nature of consent versus meta-consent?  If I move
into a development community with deed restrictions on political ads
in the front yard and agree, that's fine.  If I leave the house to my
children, they can sell it for its value if they don't like the deed
restriction.  No one's freedom has been violated here because it
really is reasonable to say they can move if they don't like it.
On the other hand, your argument that if you don't like the U.S., you
can leave and that's fair because all of our laws are just one
big 'deed restriction' that our ancestors agreed too, justifies 
any sort of repression whatsoever so long as
the right of emigration is preserved.  At such a level, this starts
to sound like saying you are free when the mugger has a gun at
your back and says ' your money or your life' because you really can
give him your money.  By that I mean that some extreme 'choices'
constitute force and no are longer free choice, even though one has a
choice between two bad options.  

I think this is a difficult problem for libertarian philosophy
(but has no real impact on libertarian policies).  If one accepts
a degree of coercion test, as I tried to exemplify above, then
what about the arguments of liberals who use such to justify
redistrubution of wealth (freedom without money is slavery and
therefore theft from the rich is justified to give freedom to the
poor), what about zoning when it is not ex post facto?
I would like to see some good discussion of these issues, not the
particular issues, but the philosophical basis.

To summarize, my parents cannot bind me, but they can 'bind' all
of their property, at least for some period after their death.
But what happens if a large percentage of all property is bound
in such a way (e.g. blacks cannot live here) as to effectively deny
someone what otherwise seem to be their freedom?


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