The easiest way to tell them apart is their view of "Martin Luther" King, whose real name was Michael. The right sees him for what he was -- a plagiarizing, woman-beating, whore-mongering Communist adulterer. The left thinks he was a good guy (which reminds me of what Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote: "Leftists don't merely misunderstand human nature; they don't understand it at all").
Since leftists all all stripes don't understand human nature, they will of course have whacko ideas. One of those ideas that leftist-libertarians have is the idea of open borders, since they believe borders are "artificial."
That belief is the depth of silliness. What isn't artificial? Clothes? Houses? Cars? Domesticated dogs? Beaver dams?
These people can't even tell the difference between "natural" and "artificial" -- not that is matters.
Leftists also don't believe, in varying degrees, there aren't any significant differences between men, women, races, cultures, religions, ethnic groups.
Such beliefs are ideology -- and I mean this in the sense that Russell Kirk defined it: a set of simple-minded beliefs that people believe apply to everything, even if they clearly, obviously don't.
Kirk wrote that ideology is "a dogmatic political theory which is an endeavor to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines." What he wrote explains why deracinated "intellectuals" believe things no one with any common sense or experience in life would believe: get rid of government and borders and Utopia will blossom.
Since what leftists believe is their religion (and atheism is a religion) they can't change their minds (and that reminds me of the saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result").
Imagine if we did have completely open borders. We wouldn't have peace and free trade. There would be war and genocide. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never heard of the Hutus and Tutsis, the Europeans and the American Indians, the Romans and the Celts...or any other ethnic group that has tried to share the land with a different one, throughout all of recorded history. And, I'm sure, before.
Imagine Jews, Christians, Muslims, whites, blacks, browns and Asians all trying to share the same land...say in America. In the hallucinations of leftists all would get along, united in their love and SUVs and DVD players. In reality they'd kill each other until one tribe expelled all the others. It's been the history of the world. As the War Nerd so perceptively wrote, "When one tribe encounters another historically the result has been genocide."
Some libertarians quote Murray Rothbard, a good economist but a poor historian. He used the examples of Ireland and Iceland as "anarchist" societies. He didn't know much about them, and neither do his followers.
Iceland was an island of bloodshed and slaughter. And as for Ireland, I have forgotten more about than area (being that my ancestors are Scots-Irish) than Rothbard ever knew. For hundreds of years the area around Ireland, Scotland and Northern England was a land also of murder, theft and slaughter. The people were called Borderers, or reivers, who used to skin English solders and tan their hides and hang them on their walls. They were probably the most fierce and war-like people in the history of the world -- and some of the dumbest. And they are my ancestors.
The only way there can be open borders is if the federal government overrules the states, counties, cities, neighborhoods, and people. And why do they do it? To enrich the 1% at the expense of the other 99% by driving wages down to rock bottom. To impoverish everyone so the superrich and become even richer.
That would be funny if it wasn't tragic -- the idea that libertarians, who supposedly hate the federal government, unwittingly support it. That's what the self-delusion of ideology does to people. It warps their brains and makes them unable to see reality.
And since leftists have murdered about 200 million people in the 20th century...
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Americans are increasingly growing apart from each other. People are now seeking to live where like-minded people live. It's shown up in election results. Only about 10 states are competitive in Presidential elections now, which has not been the case since the Gilded Age. It's known in D.C. as the Red State/Blue State divide, a term you may have heard before.
// The easiest way to tell them apart is their view of "Martin Luther" King
True. This is insightful. My last straw with libertarianism came in 2002, when Trent Lott (no hero to be sure) said something polite to Strom Thurmond and the libertarian punditocracy came down on him with both feet. We were informed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was pro-liberty and anti-government. That freedom of association was statist, because it necessarily relies on law enforcement (which by golly is gummit!). Virginia Postrel and all the Ayn Randers of every schism and others were saying these inanities (when they weren't busy saying either "they hate us for our freedoms" or "bomb Iran!"). Basically these people are neocons - leftists.
Oops I forgot to add that they all worship MLK. Really worship him.
What in the world is a "leftist libertarian"? I wouldn't have thought there is such a thing. Maybe many hard core leftists think that wanting pot legalized makes you a libertarian.
"Some libertarians quote Murray Rothbard, a good economist but a poor historian. He used the examples of Ireland and Iceland as "anarchist" societies."
Rothbard's examples are quite revealing for other reasons- Ireland and Iceland in what he calls their respective anarchic "Golden Ages" were both ethnically homogenous, geographically isolated island nations with nothing much worth stealing. It's true that Ireland had something of a minor intellectual Renaissance (by the very, very low standards of Dark Age Europe) in the centuries after Christianization, but once the Vikings got wind of its existence, the stateless island was basically defenseless. Irish civilization never impressed anybody after that. (Not that the end of the "Golden Age" was all the Vikings' fault, though; historians have calculated that internecine violence between different clans had already been steadily on the rise for 50 years or more before the longships arrived).
The lesson, then, seems to be this: if you want to have "Anarcho-Capitalism", first find a desolate, worthless island somewhere that has absolutely no strategic importance to anyone (somewhere like Kerguelen Islands might work). Then, colonize it exclusively with people from one close-knit ethnic group. Next, instruct everyone not to, under any circumstances, accumulate, produce, or discover any significant source of wealth that can be easily stolen or removed (if you find oil on the sea-bed somewhere, keep it a secret). Finally, stock up on weapons and hand them out to the able-bodied men, so that strangers will know not to trespass. There! Now you can live in a stateless paradise, herding sheep and living without modern medicine on a frozen rock in the middle of the ocean.
Actually, now that I describe it, I sort of like that idea, no doubt for atavistic reasons. I'm pretty sure most cosmopolitan left-libertarians wouldn't, though.
"For hundreds of years the area around Ireland, Scotland and Northern England was a land also of murder, theft and slaughter."
I once went through an English translation of the Annals of the Four Masters, looking for references to the clan from which my surname originates. In a 600-year period I found over 50 references, nearly every single one of which involved violent death of some kind. At one point, a chieftain died peacefully in his bed, and the chronicler actually thought it necessary to explain why such a bizarre and unexpected thing had occurred.
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