As most of you probably know, a federal judge has blocked portions of President Trump’s executive order pertaining to refugees from 7 Muslim majority nations. Josh Blackman has published a good summary of what this injunction accomplishes, as well as a copy of the temporary restraining order itself. According to reports, it applies to a few hundred foreigners who were either on American soil or on their way to the United States before the EO was issued. Although these individuals have temporary avoided the fate of the character portrayed by Tom Hanks in The Terminal, it’s worth noting that there are much bigger issues at stake in this debate.

The open borders know nothings have deftly exploited the ignorance of large swathes of the American public to score a public relations victory against a man whom they’ve impotently warred against for over a year. Ironically, one of the refugees Democratic partisans claimed to be rescuing was able to succinctly explain why our new President’s immigration policies were in fact pretty reasonable. Beyond the simple observation that this executive order is not a ban on Muslim refugees, we have to confront the truly bizarre notion that our current refugee resettlement policy is somehow beneficial to American citizens. While some armchair analysts on social media have made the assertion that this is not the point of refugee resettlement-a point on which we agree-others have claimed that not importing tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from abroad poses a risk of future terrorism. By this token, Japan-which has a de facto ban on Muslim immigration-should be as unlivable as Afghanistan or Pakistan. Or, at the very least, have as many terrorist attacks as Turkey.

It’s a patently absurd suggestion, yet one which is repeated without shame by open borders apologists who have no rational justification for our country’s bizarre refugee resettlement program. Just as the beliefs of Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande-two European leaders who have presided over an unprecedented spree of Muslim terror within their countries-is a laughable excuse to invite in potential security risks, so to is the misguided notion that we’re creating terrorists by not letting potential terrorists onto American soil. Nearly half of the refugees admitted to the United States, and over 30% of those admitted since the 9/11 attacks, are Muslim. To comprehend why this is such a problem you need only scroll through a week’s worth of posts on Refugee Resettlement Watch.

Leaving aside the potential for terrorism-both domestically and abroad-exploitation of the welfare system, and crime, there’s the fundamental incompatibility of cultures. As the economist Nassim Taleb has pointed out, Americans expect foreigners who come here to accept American values and customs-and at a bare minimum, not to impose their values upon us. Whether or not this is a realistic expectation is another matter, but the idea that every person coming here does so because they want to become part of American society-a notion regurgitated endlessly by open borders advocates-is simply preposterous.

Even those who don’t pose a direct threat to the health and safety of American citizens-who don’t engage in honor killings, as dozens of Muslims families in the United States do each year-hold beliefs that are fundamentally at odds with those which shaped this nation. While those views are normal in Iraq, Somalia, or Syria, they are not in the United States, and we should not attempt to normalize them-to borrow a phrase from the unhinged left. President Trump’s order, however crudely executed, was the right thing to do. Hopefully, it’s just the beginning of a completely new approach to this vital issue.

Correction: As the commenter below points out, Jason Richwine is a regular contributor to National Review Online. We regret the error. 

One of the benefits of the Trump campaign, regardless of one’s thoughts on the merits of a Trump presidency, is its exposure of the conservative establishment. The irony of an undisciplined and at times extremely uncouth candidate, whose grasp of policy is tenuous, to say the least, obliterating the intellectual veneer of a movement with hundreds of millions of dollars in endowments and countless scholars at its disposal is one which will be endlessly analyzed in the years to come. Professor George Hawley’s book, Right-Wing Critics Of American Conservatism, does not seek to analyze or deconstruct the Trump phenomenon, but it does hold some clues as to why Donald Trump has succeeded in dismantling a political infrastructure which has dominated the Republican Party for over half a century.

This book is a marvelous discovery for a number of reasons, not least because it provides a coherent, internally consistent definition of conservatism, as well as its ideological antipode, contemporary liberalism. After examining and rejecting several philosophical distinctions between the right and the left-including Thomas Sowell’s assertion that this divide reflects a difference in beliefs about the innate malleability of human nature-Hawley arrives at an intelligible cleavage between these two very broad political groupings. He asserts that the left/modern liberalism is an ideology which extols equality as the primary virtue above all others when considering how our society should be structured, whereas the right/conservatives view equality as a subsidiary or ancillary value within our society.

Although the goals of the left have shifted over the course of time, with campaigns to redistribute wealth and level economic inequalities being replaced by affinity groups emphasizing racial, sexual, and spiritual  identities-to the consternation of some traditional leftists-it has retained its emphasis on radical egalitarianism. Just as the right, with a  few exceptions, has always placed some other value above regimented equality. Professor Hawley is not the first scholar to make the observation that the modern conservative movement is largely a synthetic, artificial creation. The fact that it is a union of three widely disparate strands of right wing thought, i.e. foreign policy hawks, libertarians, and religious/traditionalist conservatives, is common knowledge.

However, he has broken new ground by exploring just how this tenuous marriage has made mainstream conservatism an ideology of such narrow public appeal, in a book which gives a respectful hearing to its most important right wing critics. In addition to examining the grievances voiced by paleoconservatives, Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, among others who were drummed out of-or never invited in to-respectable conservatism, he also points up the hypocrisy of conservative icons such as William F. Buckley Jr., as well as his less impressive heirs, and asks some pointed questions. For example, why did a vociferous defender of Senator Joe McCarthy believe that the anti-Communism of the John Birch Society was beyond the pale? Also, why are the seemingly benign sociological observations of Jason Richwine worse than the anti-civil rights editorials from the early days of National Review?

While these stances could be chalked up to a natural Burkean evolution, a much more reasonable explanation is that the leaders of the conservative movement, or racket, as some would describe it, simply want to insulate themselves from any legitimate challenge from the right. While opponents of conservatives have always adhered to a policy of no enemies on the left, movement conservatism has taken precisely the opposite tack, making alliances of convenience with its ostensible enemies whenever popular right wing movements threaten its place within the political firmament. By imposing rigid constraints upon the range of  ideas which can be expressed, the conservative movement has simultaneously marginalized grassroots conservatism while emboldening and strengthening its theoretical enemies. Which explains why writers who enthusiastically support the dismemberment of unborn children up to the moment of birth remain well-respected members of the socially progressive commentariat, while conservative scholars who publish academically rigorous papers demonstrating the burden unskilled immigrants impose upon American taxpayers are ritualistically denounced and shunned by the likes of Rich Lowry and his peers.

These periodic purges of right wingers have real-world consequences, which Professor Hawley methodically illustrates in a book which those promoting a chimerical Ben Sasse candidacy, or the deus ex machina scenario envisioned by Bill Kristol, would benefit from reading. He demonstrates how unappealing mainstream conservatism has become to the  majority of the American electorate, despite the fact that conservatives still exert an outsized influence over American politics. There are a number of reasons for this, including the enormous and unrelenting demographic change imposed through mass immigration-a policy we’ve explored at length on this website-the increasing secularization of the American public, the lingering stigma of Bush administration failures both domestically and abroad, and finally, the almost complete cession of popular culture to the left. The investment that the conservative movement has made in politics over the past half-century has been complete, despite Andrew Breitbart’s trenchant observation that politics is downstream from culture.

It’s entirely possible that all of these developments collectively, or one of them in isolation, would have ultimately limited the appeal of mainstream conservatism to the American public. However, the epistemic closure within the conservative movement-and demonization of any intellectual on the right, whether it be Ayn Rand or Pat Buchanan, who defies its dogma-has created a situation where no one outside of the hermetically sealed world of Bucklyean conservatism is willing to seriously entertain its increasingly irrelevant arguments. The ossified nature of contemporary American conservatism, which, supply side economics aside, has changed remarkably little since the ascendancy of Goldwater Republicanism and the new right, is one of the main takeaways from this book.

Even as the cultural left has notched victory after victory-forcing mainstream conservatism to adopt  almost all of its central premises-the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the the respectable right have become more and more narrow. Thus, we have essays which could have been penned by Joan Walsh appearing in a magazine which describes itself as the most influential magazine and website for conservative news and opinion. The fact that there now exists an unbridgeable divide between conservative elites and their purported audience has been acknowledged by no less a conservative mandarin than Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

Whatever merit fusionism once held during the Cold War, its time has clearly passed. The splintering of the right-and consequent loss of power by its putative leaders-has opened up a long-suppressed discussion of what conservatism in its organic form means. Professor Hawley’s work is an invaluable starting point for that conversation.

For Beginners Books

I just hope everyone there – and all of you out in blogland – keep in mind Bryan Caplan’s Ideological Turing Test: Strive to model your opponent’s thinking as human and well-intentioned, not demonic. I always do, even though everyone is stupid.

–Todd Seavey 

I love the above quote for a number of reasons, not least because, although laced with irony, it gingerly hints at a fundamental ignorance among vast swathes of the population. Not simply of economics, which, admittedly, is a seemingly abstruse, esoteric area of knowledge that routinely confuses even credentialed experts in their chosen field, but of simple cause and effect relationships. It also illustrates the acerbic wit of its author, who’s used his withering sarcasm-along with a broad-based knowledge of American history, as well as economic and political philosophy-to great effect in service of libertarianism for the better part of the past two decades.

The latter is deployed liberally throughout  Libertarianism For Beginners, which, as Mr. Seavey’s introduction to the philosophy of Spooner, Mises, and Rothbard for laymen, is available for purchase today! Although his trademark caustic humor is sublimated throughout this book in order to explain the essential philosophical underpinnings of libertarianism-and persuade you of their pertinence to human civilization-the book itself is replete with amusing anecdotes and descriptive illustrations which puncture the logical fallacies upon which collectivist ideologies are constructed.

In fact, this work is actually something of a graphic novel, with artist Nathan Smith providing the reader with visual cues to basic libertarian concepts. The tone is set prior to the introduction, when you see a cover displaying a Randian Atlas figure shouldering a globe containing a large land mass in the shape of a porcupine-the personification of the Free State Project-as he kneels before a Gadsden rattlesnake pictured in the foreground.

The whimsical nature of the cover art, slyly winking at those readers already deeply steeped in libertarian culture, is a bit of a tell. Because even as this thorough exposition of libertarianism gives the novice-or those completely unfamiliar with the precepts of libertarianism-a solid grounding in the teachings of free market economists, individualist philosophers, and anarcho-capitalist professors, often through the use of colorful analogies, it also reaffirms and solidifies the beliefs of those ideologically committed to thwarting the ever-metastasizing encroachments of the state. It reveals that the author of this work is indeed an insider, although one who is willing and eager to share the fruits of his knowledge with an audience whose thinking on this subject is muddled, to say the least. 

One of Mr. Seavey’s great achievements is to fully delineate the differences between separate strands of libertarianism, from agorism and voluntaryism to mutualism and left-libertarianism-as well as to define the fundamental difference in approach between natural rights and consequentialist libertarians-without getting bogged down in minutiae that would be of little interest to laymen. He concentrates the reader’s mind on the cornerstones of this philosophy, which include a non-negotiable opposition to any policies which condone fraud, theft, or violence, as well as a belief in the inviolability of private property, including your own body.

It is a philosophy which hinges upon the rejection of coercion as a form of public policy. Notwithstanding the negative connotations left libertarians have applied to the term, every libertarian properly understood is a propertarian. In the sense that he or she subscribes to the belief that any and all contracts are valid only through the mutual consent of the contracting parties, and that the mediating bureaucratic institutions with which we have become so familiar are wholly illegitimate, even if they are sanctioned by current law.

The other great accomplishment of the author is his simple, yet utterly persuasive, explanation of why these principles-terrifying, if not repellent, to a large segment of the population-are not only practicable, but yield outcomes superior to the collectivist approach in virtually any human social interaction. We live in a society where property rights are conditional, and rest upon the property owner’s obeisance towards an evolving set of social norms determined exclusively by the state-and which are often enacted through the lobbying pressure of interest groups who don’t realize that the only true rights are those held and exercised by individuals.

The notion that it’s not in the economic interests of a business owner to discriminate against any class of  potential customers, or that the harm inflicted by a bigoted entrepreneur upon a theoretical customer who’s denied service is vastly outweighed by the harm done through the coercive intervention of progressive government functionaries, is simply inconceivable to a modern, university-educated citizen. A person who, more often than not, views this debate exclusively through the prism of feelings rather than rights. Although by no means a comprehensive rebuttal, Libertarianism for Beginners goes a long way towards explaining why this is a short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive way of viewing things, and why consensual exchange, even if not resulting in a perfect outcome under every circumstance, is the most likely route to the maximization of happiness. Something that is of the utmost concern to a utilitarian like Seavey.

When not debunking popular misconceptions about libertarians, including the mistaken perception that opposing government redistribution of private wealth is synonymous with enmity towards the poor-when, in fact, they sincerely believe that government anti-poverty programs are simply a misallocation of resources, which ultimately eradicate more successful voluntary efforts-Seavey is describing in colorful detail the historical antecedents to contemporary libertarianism. One of the main reasons libertarian ideas are greeted with such skepticism by the general public is because most people don’t realize how recently the managerial state came into being. One of the chief conceits of government is that it is perpetual, whereas even a cursory examination of history would tell you that banking, health care, the court system, transportation, and even as vital a function as national self-defense were all once capably provided by private institutions to one degree or another in nations throughout the globe, including our own.

The deep skepticism faced by exponents of free markets and individual rights actually harkens back to the pre-Enlightenment era, when the pronouncements of the aristocracy and clergy were given precedence over human observation, discovery, and experimentation. Although the bishops and kings have been replaced by jurists, congressmen, administrative heads, and obsequious journalists (courtiers), the dynamic at work remains largely the same. That’s why Todd’s mini-biographies of classical philosophers and economists, sprinkled throughout the book, are essential to any coherent understanding of libertarianism’s evolution. The views of contemporary libertarians don’t seem so alien-like a bizarre, Dr. Frankenstein-like creation cooked up by the Koch brothers and Peter Thiel-once you discover their lineage in the writings of Locke and Burke, as well as much more recognizably libertarian thinkers such as Frederic Bastiat and Lysander Spooner.

The framers of libertarianism as a cogent political philosophy are presented, as well libertarianism’s economic forebears from the Austrian school, i.e. Böhm-Bawerk and Menger, and their intellectual heirs, Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. The monetarist school of thought is also outlined in the form of the much-maligned Milton Friedman and his anarchist son David, who’s done as good a job as anyone at explaining why privatizing the law won’t result in rival gangs of marauding mercenaries putting bullets through each other’s skulls-when they’re not murdering innocent bystanders in the lurid fantasies dreamed up by statists.

And for those intersectional feminists among you, Todd Seavey has given his readers a tantalizing primer on three titanic figures of the contemporary liberty movement: Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand, who-despite her various critics on the left and the right-managed to create a work of literature which remains the single most popular evisceration of egalitarianism and self-destructive altruism ever published. Lord knows why notionally  independent women believe their lives should be directed by a paternalistic-presumably non-misogynistic-overseer, but the biography of a penniless, persecuted Russian immigrant who manages to escape government oppression to find wild success and acclaim for her ideas in the land of opportunity-in an intellectual sphere dominated by men, no less-would seem to disprove this misguided theory of female empowerment.

Finally, the author gives us a brief overview of some of the issues that continue to sow discord within the movement itself, including antitrust regulations/corporate consolidation, immigration, and the morality of codifying the rights to intellectual and artistic works. One of the animating if not the central principles of libertarianism is property rights, which is contingent upon the scarcity of resources, but if intellectual property-by definition-is not scarce, does the state have a right to restrict access to it, even in a minarchist society? Libertarians believe individuals have the right to travel to and live wherever they choose, so long as they do so without encroaching upon the property or rights of others. But should people in a non-libertarian society be forced to defray the expenses of someone-or many people-who want to migrate to that society in order to elevate his standard of living? Why should the wealth of an individual be seized in order to facilitate the freedom of movement of someone else? Also, how does the fact that the newcomer can use his franchise, i.e. force, to enhance his own life at the expense of others’ property  factor into this conversation?

These are all knotty conversations that will not be easily resolved, however the fact that they are occurring is an indication that libertarianism, for all its faults, is at least a philosophy which takes ideas and their implications for humanity seriously. As Todd Seavey readily concedes throughout this volume, libertarianism does not presume to have all the answers, but it at least tries to ask some useful questions of those who would have us accept their dogmatic solutions without further examination or question.

Like the brilliant anti-prohibitionist classic Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, written by the late Peter McWilliams-who many consider to be a martyr in the horrifically misguided War on Drugs-Libertarianism for Beginners explains why the desire to control the lives of other human beings is not only morally unjustifiable, but ultimately futile. Like that book, it presents its case in a witty, lively manner-with abundant quotes and pictures-while also being intellectually potent.

Buy this book, either for yourself or a friend tentatively exploring libertarianism for the first time, or even for that Bernie Sanders devotee who doesn’t quite understand the laws of supply and demand-perhaps packaged with Chomsky for Beginners, in order to make it more palatable.  It’s a wonderful gift in any of those cases, one which libertarians and non-libertarians alike should be grateful exists. Even if, as Mises rightly inveighed, they’re all a bunch of (crummy) socialists, it’s always good to be reminded of the exceptions to the rule.

Today, as the federal government commemorates the legacy of  one of the  transformative figures in 20th century public  life, it should not be forgotten that Martin Luther King struggled not only to achieve racial equality but also economic opportunity for disenfranchised citizens. One of the most dispiriting developments in the over four decades since Dr. King’s assassination has been the regression in labor force participation within this nation.  Although the unemployment rate among Black workers might seem particularly distressing, the truth is that there are large swathes of what should constitute the American workforce, encompassing every ethnicity and race, which are facing chronic, unrelenting joblessness. 

Although not the source of this nation’s lackluster economy, one of the contributing factors to prolonged unemployment among large numbers of Americans-particularly those who already face extreme hardships in finding gainful employment-is our government’s policy of sustained mass immigration, as well its tacit endorsement of employers who disregard federal and state immigration laws. While it would be presumptuous of me to claim insight into how Martin Luther King Jr. would view the current immigration debate-such as it is-it’s worth noting that as recently as 1991 his widow lobbied against congressional legislation that would have further hobbled American laborers.

So the notion that he would at least have expressed ambivalence over the political class’s exclusive catering to the interests of the Chamber of Commerce and Mark Zuckerberg, while ignoring the suffering of millions of economically and emotionally struggling Americans, is not that far-fetched. Neither is the condemnation of a President who has abandoned the community which made his election possible in favor of more promising constituencies. Is it too much to ask of a president who repeatedly and capriciously invokes the legacy of Martin Luther King to give some consideration to the misery his administration’s immigration policies have imposed upon the men and women whose futures King fought so valiantly for?

With a little under a month remaining until Election Day, the Obama campaign has transitioned into full-blown hispandering mode. This week’s symbolically potent, yet empty, exercise in  gestural politics entailed President Obama designating the home of former California labor leader Cesar Chavez a national monument. The ostensible purpose of this decision is to rally support among one of his party’s most reliable voting blocs, i.e. Hispanic Americans. Because even though they still decisively support the President’s reelection, that support does not always translate into votes, as other analysts have trenchantly observed.

What makes Obama’s trip to California so fascinating though is not the seemingly transparent play for votes among an ethno-linguistic group already inclined to vote for his reelection, but the figure he chooses to honor in pursuit of this goal. It should be remembered that as head of the United Farm Workers, Cesar Chavez was militant in his efforts to increase the wage scale of California’s poorly-paid and exploited agricultural workers. And despite the fact that his legacy has been appropriated by radical open borders socialist Dolores Huerta-a co-founder of the UFW-Chavez was most militant in his actions against illegal aliens and the guest-workers from Mexico large growers relied upon in order to depress wages.

While today he is looked upon simply as a totemic figure for the left, to be utilized for whatever cause du jour-including comprehensive immigration reform-requires his unique biography, Cesar-or, as our President prefers to call him, (SEE-ZER)-Chavez began his labor activism in response to the federal government’s bracero program. His opinion regarding mass immigration-at least with regard to the agricultural sector-was the polar opposite of the contemporary Democratic Party. His views on illegal immigration were identical to that of today’s Minutemen, and expressed in a much more militant manner, it should be noted.

One of the chief reasons that farmworkers in California achieved parity with skilled workers in the manufacturing sector was precisely because of Chavez’s political efforts at restricting the inflow of unskilled, foreign workers to the state. Unsurprisingly, the steep decline in wages for this same cohort of workers-and the one that’s followed-tracked with the opening of our borders, including successive amnesties and manipulation of existing work visa programs by large agri-businesses. Agricultural concerns which still don’t believe there are enough foreign-born farmworkers in this country, despite the evidence that mechanization and innovation has actually improved farming techniques in the state of California.

You would learn none of this, however, if you relied upon the dominant media narrative for information about Cesar Chavez’s career, or gathered a fragmentary picture of  his life from vacuous, politically expedient gestures like this new national monument, or the christening of a warship in his name. However, my point isn’t that the mainstream media selectively omits certain facts and/or opinions when it suits their political purposes-which is something most of you already know-or that leftist, open borders advocates are willing to hijack the legacy of an iconic figure in order to see their ideological beliefs into law.

I raise this issue because it speaks to a gaping hole in this nation’s historical memory. The fact that craven politicians-of every stripe-will lie with impunity in order to advance their agendas is nothing new. However, the notion that they can so easily manipulate the public in an age where access to information is quite literally at the fingertips of each and every American, should be profoundly disturbing to anyone who values our republican form of government.

If the philosophy of such an historic figure-who was alive less than two decades ago-can be willfully distorted-despite the abundance of evidence clearly establishing his views on this subject-in pursuit of a tendentious agenda, then what hope is there for engaging in an honest, open debate during this most contentious of presidential elections? If the American public is not able to differentiate fact from fiction, then what hope is there that it will make an informed decision as our country casts its ballots this November? As the great Spanish philosopher, poet, and novelist George Santayana once wrote, those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.