Open borders constitute a change of regime from the original founding belief in republican self-government and natural rights to the belief in an open society, which is justified by the cosmopolitan belief that “nobody is illegal” and we are all “citizens of the world.” This humanitarianism is often informed by the passion of compassion, an idea of human rights, and an aspiration toward some vague, peaceful, socialist world order.
In our particular case, open borders are said to flow from our identity, because we are “a country of immigrants” and a country of “openness”, as distinct from a country of citizens endowed with unalienable natural rights. Compassion, human rights, and immigrant identity eventually turn into hatred and a project for social reform, because the immigrants in question are victims of Western Colonialism and are owed a share of the American pie.
These are powerful sophistries in a rich, flabby, commercial society that has lost contact with its own first principles and its own political raison d’etre.
The American founding is not a mere palimpsest to be covered over by cosmopolitanism. Our principles are indeed universal, because they are founded in “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and are “self-evident truths,” by which is meant evident to reason. Consequently, we naturalize immigrants into citizens — something that cannot happen in countries founded on race and history. The naturalization of Koreans in Japan is still a sore spot despite Japan’s total defeat and reconstruction in our image. It is not easy to live by our principles, and they cannot easily be implemented anywhere.
Open borders may seem like a fulfillment of our principles precisely because we recognize that natural rights belong to man as man, but open borders are, in fact, a corruption for several reasons.
It is one thing to say that man as man has unalienable rights. It is another thing to say that a country is an “open society” and owes outsiders a place within it. No such deduction was ever made by either Locke or the Founders because they thought that man not only belongs to his species, but that he belongs to himself. He is born free and equal and can only be ruled by his own consent.
Locke’s famous social contract theory explains the reasons why we form society and give government authority over us. It, therewith, also explains when the social contract is broken and we return to a state of war with one another. The members of the social contract are under no obligation to outsiders, who are themselves free to form their own society and government through their own social contract.
The reasonings of the social contract are simple yet fundamental and are meant for every man to understand. He must reason from a state of war to one of civil authority without going from the frying pan into the fire. He must guard against the terror of war and anarchy by creating a civil authority while avoiding tyranny from within. The people must, therefore, be sovereign, and the government must be limited. Civilization means society’s enjoyment of civil rights with an accountable government dedicated to protecting those rights.
In our sheltered and overcivilized urbanity, the reasonings of the social contract seem distant and strange, like the unintelligible cries of savages. When global warming is the great fear and Hitler’s name is frivolously tossed about, you know the citizen is being replaced by the politeness of the hostess.
Cosmopolitan politeness masquerading as morality erodes our founding at its very roots, while openness, as a new foundation for a liberal society, destroys liberal society by introducing relativism into politics.
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The Founders could be tolerant of different religions because they subjected religion to natural rights. But with the idea that there is no truth and that one must be open to different cultures, there is no longer any compelling case to be made for assimilation to American ideas and laws. Open borders accompany the belief that America should not be a melting pot, but a country of diverse cultures. Ironically, the belief in cultures erodes the very idea of a common humanity upon which many cosmopolitans hang their hats.
The open society has two contradictory trajectories. On the one hand, it tends toward the nihilism of the global Lotus Eaters, who have no justification for their existence, and on the other hand, the fanaticism of cultural commitment that abandons reason for race and history, and can find no common truth in nature. It is no surprise that Hamas receives comfort and support from the cosmopolitan Left. Politics and reason exist in the disappearing ground between herd conformity and fascist commitment. Anyone interested in defending the country, in addition to defending its borders, must make understanding the country an urgent task.
Mark Kremer is a professor of politics at Hillsdale College