Tag: mailvox

Star Wars is not science fiction

The Original Cyberpunk, who knows a thing or two about science fiction, explains:

Vox, my young friend, I should think that you of all people would appreciate the true genius of J. J. Abrams. If he’d chosen to go into music he would have been one of those guys who said “Screw actually learning to play an instrument” and parked himself in a recording studio with a drum machine, a sampler, two turntables and a microphone, and then spent his days churning out hit single after hit single by sampling, looping, and remixing earlier hit singles.

Instead, he chose to go into film-making, where he is doing exactly the same thing: compositing together commercially successful movies by lifting scenes, bits of business, and entire set pieces from earlier successful movies. He is the first fully realized hip-hop filmmaker.

I should think you of all people would appreciate that.

By the way, here’s my review: 

Saw this movie, we did. Long, it is. Impossible to write a substantive review without including spoilers, it may be. Nonetheless, try I will.

In the interests of full disclosure, though, I must lead off this review by pointing out that I contributed not one but two essays to David Brin’s Star Wars on Trial, the first arguing in favor of the original Star Wars trilogy as a watershed moment in cinematic history and the second absolutely slagging the prequel trilogy as childish tripe. So I come into this review with a long history as both a consumer and critic of Star Wars entertainment products, and I will put my greatest heresy on the table right now:

Star Wars is not science fiction.

Sure, it looks like science fiction. It sounds like science fiction. And based on that guy in the wookiee costume who was ahead of us in the concession line, it even smells like science fiction, or at least like the third day of a furry fandom convention.

But Star Wars is not science fiction. It’s a long-winded heroic magical fantasy saga that happens to take place in a world cluttered up with lots of sci-fi props and set dressings. If considered as science fiction, there is not one thing in the entire Star Wars universe that bears close scrutiny, because if you think about it at all seriously, the seams split and all the nonsense comes pouring out.

Read the rest of it there. It is… informative. As for J.J. Abrams, I appreciate that he is good at what he does. I just don’t like what he does. That stupid “mystery box” formula of his is the sure sign of a storytelling charlatan.

“Equality” means the girls must win

AD relates a tale of competition, such as it is:

Last year, my homeschooled son participated in a team puzzle-solving competition at the local college.  He had a blast, and when the alert came out for the event this year, he was the first to sign up.  My daughter wasn’t old enough last year, but was the second person to sign up this year.

The woman running the groups this year contacted my wife last night to inform her that my son had been cut from the team.  “Why?”

The woman admitted that my son had done quite well last year, had not upset or annoyed anyone, contributed heavily, and was definitely an asset to the team.  After quite a bit of beating around the bush, the woman finally admitted that the rest of the team was entirely female and she was afraid that they “might feel uncomfortable with one boy in the group.”

“So, you’re telling me that you cut my son from the team solely because he is MALE?”

“Um…well…er…yes, I guess.”

The punch line…the woman asked if my daughter would mind being the only girl on an otherwise all-male team.

The woman delayed talking to us (due to “bad email address, sorry”) until it was far too late to form a team of our own.

My son quit on the spot, knowing he was not welcome.  My daughter immediately quit in solidarity with her brother.  Both are looking forward to next year, when they form their own separate homeschoolers team and get even for the insult.

That’s the spirit. And this is an example of why no man should ever be chivalrous in competition with women. Crush the opposite sex without mercy every time they dare to step foot on a level playing field. Because far too few of them have any intention of playing fair with men and boys.

I’ve mentioned before that when I coached a boy’s soccer team, we once played in a tournament against all-girls team that was blatantly favored by the referee, so much so that my players were being called for their fouls and even had a goal disallowed for a nonexistent foul AFTER the goal was scored. And this was after I’d taken out all my starters since we were up 3-0.

So, I taught the opposing coach, the referee, and my boys a lesson by putting all of the starters back in and telling them to score at will. I don’t remember what the final score was, but it was in the teens and the girls never even came close to scoring. The boys were brutally unmerciful; both the starters and the subs were furious and each unnecessary goal was cheered as if  it was the winning one. The lesson was this: those who don’t play fair don’t merit any sporting mercy.

I don’t have any objection to genuinely gifted girls who really need to play with the boys in order to fully develop their skills. My favorite player on one of Ender’s teams a few years ago is now a junior international and will probably be called up to the women’s national team within the next two years. But in 42 years of playing soccer, she is the only girl I ever met who merited that sort of accommodation.

Anyhow, I hope the reader’s homeschooled team goes in and crushes the competition, particularly the team that wouldn’t have him.

Mailvox: two readers, two different views

A regular reader is going to be a little busy for the next 18 months:

Hi Vox, I hope all continues to go well (your presence on Twitter is missed.)

I just wanted to thank you for your good wishes on my IDF service [he went in yesterday – VD] and for being one of the few rational, perceptive political commentators online (also for being an ideologically consistent and honest member of the alt right, or your stream at least, while much of it appears to be purity spiraling into extinction.

Thanks again for the good wishes. And yes, the riots do seem to be only posturing. Israelis I follow who’ve seen them say they seem underwhelming, low energy, like they’re just being done because that’s what’s expected. A guard was stabbed at the Jerusalem central bus station today, and the media is going to link it to the Trump declaration, but that’s just palestinians being palestinians.

I mentioned to him that at least the locus of global violence appears to be well away from the usual Mid East hotspot for once. More than a few VP readers are serving their nations in various militaries and I hope and pray they will all stay safe in these increasingly dangerous times.

Another one was a little less appreciative of my work:

“Low morale cowards,” “useless parasites,” “fearful MGTOW,” “indentured servants.”  You sound like a woman castigating a ‘men’s rights’ advocate with just as little interest or sympathy as those women have.  As a result, you’re just as convincing.

“Going Galt” existed long before the internet, and has much more basis in fact overall.  When men don’t see anything worth contributing to, they don’t contribute, as is their right.  They may look for ways their contributions will be recognized [the military, the black market] they may keep their productive work to themselves, they may do nothing but smoke pot and play video games.  But none of that qualifies as cowardice, fear or servitude.

At some point, women have to step up their game and be worth more than looking at [or banging, if you’re the kind who chases women.]  If I was into investing, I would be putting all my money into sexbot companies, especially once they start programming sexbots to cook, clean, do laundry, shopping, and answer the phone/emails.

This isn’t fear or parasitism, this is a natural response to the world women want to live in, and Muslims and Hispanic Catholics will eagerly supplant us.  Maybe they can enjoy the thousands of pages of comic books I’ve written, drawn and lettered, the dozens of CDs of music I’ve recorded or the almost-nine books I’ve published.  [Still trying to finish proofing the ninth book]  I can’t see how my life would be better if I’d chased women or spent my life watching movies in the same amount of time.

I’ve suffered worse than ‘Vox Day doesn’t look well upon my kind” [and thanks to God I haven’t had any real suffering outside of the military where suffering is sorta expected.]  A sexbot would improve my life guaranteed much more than a human wife would, so even though you say you’re not telling us to ‘man up and wife these sluts’ that’s really the effect of what you’re saying.  I could have spent the last fifteen or twenty years of my life wandering in a dark forest for the same result.  It’s not fear of a dark forest, it’s knowing that every minute I spend there is one less minute I can focus on what matters to me.  This is the same ‘how to win friends and influence people’ playbook as the Democrats are using, good for entertainment and not much else.

What can I say? He makes my point for me. The fear emanates from his missive like a visible fog. While we can’t dismiss him as a useless parasite due to his past military service, what is the point of defending one’s nation if one does not also act to perpetuate it?

The ironic thing is that MGTOW denigrate women for making choices that preclude their becoming wives and mothers. And then, they promptly declare that they are justified in doing the same. Where is the male leadership in that? That is not leadership, it is the precise opposite.

I, too, have written books, recorded music, and even written a few dozen pages of comic books. And I can declare, with more than a little authority, that the most important thing I have done for both the West and humanity is to marry Spacebunny and have children with her. MGTOW are every bit as wrong about the importance of their individual accomplishments as the college girl who is focused on her degree and her career instead of her family life.

Mailvox: SJWs really do always lie

A note from a reader of SJWAL who discovered that SJWs really have to be encountered to be believed:

Just wanted to thank you for your invaluable insights in SJWAL… I got roped into joining my HOA board a year and a half ago after the former president rage quit due to resident’s being angry with her behavior. She actually recommended me as a replacement. I think she actually thought I was an SJW and that she was going to be able to control me since all my interactions with her were friendly agreements in the interests of trying to get her away from me as fast as possible. She is retired so she has plenty of free time and has always been the neighbor that snoops in everyone’s business and selectively complains about neighbors she does not like violating minor rules. She had been working on updating the community rules book when she quit and the rest of the board wanted to allow her to stay on the rules committee. Whenever the topic came up, I said “that is fine, but she does realize that the board can vote to accept, reject or modify her proposed rules.”

Flash forward this summer and she is still working on the rules with no end in sight. The board has turned over through resignations and only myself and one of her minions remain on the board. The other 3 board members and I agree to place a deadline on the rules committee. To spare you the gory details you don’t care about, the committee submitted a proposal on time after much complaining about deadlines.

The board was in the process of reviewing it and suddenly she started meeting, in secret with her minion and working on proposed modifications. We had a board meeting and her minion submitted her proposed changes, we voted on each one individually and some passed and some failed. The next day we get an angry email from her about how we were violating the law if we did not write the rules the way she had proposed. That she as a member of the rules committee she should have been invited to the meeting and included a PS that said the email was to voice her objection to our proposed rule because it was illegal – it’s not – and she didn’t want to be implicated if the association were sued by a concerned resident.

I wrote the response and made clear they were my opinions alone. I informed her she was not invited because the rules committee was dissolved after the deadline voted upon. I pointed out where she was wrong about the things we rejected and asked her to cite relevant law on the things she was claiming were illegal. I finished the note saying I, personally, did not appreciate the veiled threat in the post script.

She wrote an response to the whole board about how she was crying just reading my “hateful” email. She doubled down and claimed she had legal opinions to back up her assertion. She complained about how it was disrespectful of us to put a deadline on her and the other committee members etc. etc.

Next morning I decided to respond. I prefaced the email saying I wasn’t going to go point by point with her because I didn’t think it would be beneficial. I then stated that I was going to state three things without malice or ill will towards her. The first thing was stating that respect is a two way street and asked her to honestly consider why she has unresolved conflicts with multiple neighbors (the number is close to 30{84e33cb3079486242e497491211df3d205f46b3a0e51fcdbcd64cea5b9aea06c} of the neighborhood).  The second statement was that I would pray that she finds peace and contentment in her life because in 7 years I had noticed that these were things she struggled to achieve (she is a churchian). The third was the simple statement “I will not be bullied”.

I get the reply later that morning. “Stop harassing me immediately” She references her email sent to the whole board about not wanting emails and I wasn’t respecting her wishes. Then the bingo moment “I call this harassment, especially because I am a woman”. She then threatens to contact the police and have her and her husband make sworn statements that I am harassing them if I ever speak to or email either of them again.

I was a little taken a back by this at first, reread my emails and realized they were tame and fact based, and was thankful for the fact that I sent copies of all correspondence to the board immediately before sending to or after receiving anything from her. I have 2 board members solidly backing me independently sending me emails that had the same sentiments of “good job, it’s time someone confronted her” and “you were much kinder than I would have been”. The same two initiated separate motions to the board about not allowing her to participate on any committees again, and seeing if there is anything we can do about her threatening a board member.

The fundamental mistake, of course, was giving this SJW the chance to have any input on the rules after she stepped down from the board. But this is a pretty textbook situation, from the board members naively failing to anticipate the SJW’s bad behavior to everyone being surprised by the shameless lies and counterattacks that to which an SJW who feels threatened invariably resorts.

Fortunately, the emailer was prepared, although it was a complete waste of time to babble about respect and prayer and personal lives. I suspect the emailer may be a woman, because women are usually far too concerned about that sort of superficial virtue-signaling trivia. But the important thing is that she also made it clear to the SJW that she was not going to submit and accept the SJW’s false narrative. It was also good that she copied the rest of the board on everything; notice how the SJW tried to conceal her direct communications with the emailer from the other board members.

It’s not difficult to defeat SJWs once you learn to identify and anticipate them. With a little patience and foresight, you can readily trap and expose them to the benefit of naive third parties who still think SJWs are some sort of fictional bogeyman.

Mailvox: low morale men

JAG defends MGTOW:

This is why I don’t look down my nose at the MGTOW guys. Most of them are MGTOW because women have become so toxic through feminism that they are no longer attractive. Plus, many of these guys have seen their brothers, fathers, uncles, etc., utterly destroyed by the feminist court system that makes the man an indentured servant for the rest of his life after taking everything else away from him all because the woman got bored or some other ridiculous reason.

I realize that this is not a popular opinion around here, but those are my reasons for being sympathetic to the MGTOWs. How could you blame them, really? I know that lack of breeding is the biggest issue many have with them, but they are staunch allies when it comes to the issue of feminism.

How could you blame them? Easily. MGTOW are low morale cowards. From the societal and civilizational perspective they are useless parasites who, by their fecklessness, are helping the barbarians win the civilization war. Sure, they’re vastly to be preferred to the feminists, foreigners, globalists, and anti-Christians who are actively waging war against Western civilization, but they are passively refusing to defend it in any way.

How are they any better than the very Western women they excoriate? They are, in fact, observably worse, as both are in it merely for themselves but at least the women may produce the next generation of Western children, even if they will surely raise them in a sub-optimal manner. Neither the feral woman nor the fearful MGTOW is capable of maintaining the civilization whose toys they enjoy.

If we aren’t sympathetic to soldiers who run the moment they see the first casualties in their unit, we should not be sympathetic to men who run from women because they saw someone taken down by a toxic woman. The truth is that men often suffer the legal order they deserve, because they tolerate it. Would any Roman patrician have meekly submitted to being made an indentured servant at the whim of his wife and the word of a judge?

No. He would have killed the judge, the wife, and everyone who assisted either of them, then calmly gone home and opened his veins in the bath. That’s why Roman law permitted patriarchs to kill those under their authority who crossed them in any way – because they were going to do it anyway and the maintenance of legal order in their society relied upon acknowledging that reality.

But the modern man values his toys more than his honor. That’s why no one, including the legal system, respects his possession of either. Men could end the entire divorce machine in 30 days if they chose, but instead, they prefer to live alone as indentured servants or in fear of becoming an indentured servant. I am not saying “wife up those sluts”, I am merely saying that living one’s life in fear of potentially wifing up a woman who may turn out to be less than entirely faithful and interested in playing the divorce lottery is not worthy of respect or emulation.

A man of the West takes risks. A man of the Wests molds his wife and his children. A man of the West is willing to fight for his honor, his family, and his civilization. Success is not guaranteed. But then, when, in the entire history of Man, has it ever been guaranteed? For millennia, young men of honor have fought and died for what they believe. But for what, if anything, would an MGTOW risk breaking a fingernail?

Mailvox: the foundations of Reconquista

Scott C wonders why Donald Trump is willing to call the Muslim world’s bluff on Jerusalem:

what the hell was Trump thinking by doing something that he and his advisers had to know would trigger a third Intifada???

Who cares about another Intifada? Another Intifada would actually be desirable from the American perspective, and possibly the right-wing Israeli perspective as well. The West is dealing with a much more serious problem of Muslim invasion and needs to launch Reconquista 2.0 before the outcome of it is in any doubt. The worse Muslims behave worldwide, the better, as the harder it is for their (((advocates))) in the West to cover for their customary behavior.

Best of all, those (((advocates))) can’t even object to the God-Emperor’s action, because he is giving them something that they have publicly demanded for decades. It’s a strategically brilliant move. Myanmar and China may be the first countries to be addressing their Muslim invasions, but they will not be the last. I see Trump’s action to be following a strategy similar to that of Myanmar’s. Pressure, provoke, and clean house.

From the headlines:

  • ‘Death to America’: Lebanese press issues threats after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while Turkey says US has ‘pulled the pin on a bomb’
  • Pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar carried front page saying ‘Death to America’ along with a burning US flag
  • Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said US had ‘pulled the pin on a bomb ready to blow in the region’
  • The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas last night condemned recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
  • Islamists called for ‘days of rage’ and new ‘intifada’ uprising after saying Trump had ‘opened the gates of hell’

If those headlines don’t surprise you, why would you imagine that they surprise the God-Emperor? They are reacting exactly as he expects them to react. All you need to ask yourself is why he wants them to react that way.

Translation: distraction. I believe a war is about to begin. Most likely on the Korean Peninsula, although if that is the second distraction, we may be in for a bigger and more unpleasant surprise.

Mailvox: throwing girls to the wolves

Rollory disapproves of men protecting their daughters. He claims Dalrock does too, although I would not be so sure of that.

This is the sort of thing Dalrock rips to shreds every chance he gets. I don’t always agree with every detail of his argument but it’s definitely worth thinking about.

The message this shirt is sending is “I belong to my daddy, not to the young man who might otherwise be interested.” It’s crazy for the young woman, it’s crazy for the father, and any young man who is sane will receive the message loud and clear and stay far away, choosing instead another girl whose father ISN’T playing the overprotective sexually jealous guardian.

An excess of suitable young grooms needing ever stricter winnowing is not at all the problem facing marriageable young women today. Again, Dalrock has covered this, and continues to do so.

Dalrock is good on many subjects, particularly on the Church and feminism, but if Rollory is correct and the message on this t-shirt is the sort of thing that Dalrock rips to shreds every chance he gets, then he doesn’t understand female psychology very well, nor would he appear to have daughters or sisters. It may help to keep in mind that this is the original context of the phrase.

  1. Take a position on high ground somewhere in the middle with clean sight lines of the entire route.
  2. Load a round into your .50 caliber rifle.
  3. Take the lens covers off the scope.
  4. Watch as your little girl walks off to school by herself.

There is nothing crazy about a father being protective of his daughters. There is nothing even remotely crazy about a young woman wanting to feel protected by her daddy. While people can, and do, go too far – and anything that is more suited for a wedding or a high school prom is going too far – there is nothing overprotective or “sexually jealous” about paternal protectiveness; anyone leaping to that conclusion is raising serious questions about their own psychosexual issues. The ironic thing about citing Dalrock in this regard is that Dalrock regularly complains about “feral” young women; he even has a category called Feral Females.

Now, where do you suppose feral young women come from, families where men protect their daughters or families where men simply throw their daughters to the vagaries of sexual selection, to fend off the predators as best they can on their own? The symbolism of the t-shirt is less about winnowing the suitable young grooms, than it is about giving the daughter the strength and the permission to say “no” to the wrong ones in the full knowledge that her father will have her back.

But as it happens, the real target of the message is not men. The t-shirt is actually status-signaling on the part of the daughter, or the wife, when that version of the t-shirt is ready. It is less a warning to young men than it is bragging to other young women that she is valued, that she is loved, and that she is worthy of protection by a man who is strong enough to provide it for her. Both Dalrock and Rollory appear to have forgotten that support and protection are the two primary male roles in every relationship with women and children, and that stable young women really do treasure those things.

I suspect a telling determinant will be who loves these shirts and who hates them. My prediction is that good girls from strong families will love the message and feminists will furiously hate it. The more interesting question, and one to which I do not have an answer, is: why do men like Dalrock and Rollory dislike it so much?

Regardless, King Edward’s motto is appropriate.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.


UPDATE: since we’re discussing the shirt, I should mention that the long-sleeve crewneck version is now available as well.

Mailvox: SJWs ruin everything

A reader writes about how convergence ruled his church:

The first time I corresponded with you was last year, in which I asked advice about a church which brought in a San Francisco 49er for one of their sermons. The entire point of the sermon was to lecture the congregation on how Colin Kaepernick was doing God’s work by kneeling for the anthem– not scriptural in the least. They followed a pattern of social justice convergence: firing pastors who were more scholarly in biblical works, hiring a woman to preach once a month, bringing in a more “diverse” congregation intentionally to replace the faithful. My wife and I walked out on the church and never returned. The advice you gave was to take charge of the spiritual matters of my family, as a man should, and on my end, as I’ve turned to Him, God has bestowed us with blessings beyond anything I could have imagined this year.

However, the converged church is not faring so well. They used to be one of the largest churches in the San Francisco Bay Area, and by all accounts they are failing hard. Attendance has dropped drastically. They’ve lost most of the actual “doers” on their staff to other churches. They’ve replaced most paid staff with volunteers who aren’t as competent. The church used to have its own coffee shop which it has now closed down because it no longer can sustain itself. In the space of one year since veering off into social justice, it has destroyed itself.

Social justice leads to complete ruin every time. Thought you might like an update.

I can’t say I’m surprised. The death knell is the female preachers. I don’t know why, exactly, but once a church reaches that point, you can rest assured that it isn’t coming back.

Mailvox: do not “correct” me

I so despise the sort of midwit who leaps upon every possible opportunity to “correct” someone in order to show off how smart he is, and in doing so, demonstrates his own ignorance. Add in a dash of smug passive-aggression if you want to maximize the annoyance factor. Here is a suggestion: if you think I’ve gotten something wrong, look it up. If the 14 years of this blog serve as a reliable guide, there is about a 98 percent chance you are wrong.

VD: We can only hope that he will treat them in much the same way Sulla treated his political opponents

valiance: The way *Marius* treated his political opponents, surely?

VD: No.

From Infogalactic: Sulla

At the end of 82 BC or the beginning of 81 BC, the Senate appointed Sulla dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa (“dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution”). The “Assembly of the People” subsequently ratified the decision, with no limit set on his time in office. Sulla had total control of the city and republic of Rome, except for Hispania (which Marius’s general Quintus Sertorius had established as an independent state). This unusual appointment (used hitherto only in times of extreme danger to the city, such as during the Second Punic War, and then only for 6-month periods) represented an exception to Rome’s policy of not giving total power to a single individual. Sulla can be seen as setting the precedent for Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, and for the eventual end of the Republic under Augustus.

In total control of the city and its affairs, Sulla instituted a series of proscriptions (a program of executing those whom he perceived as enemies of the state). Plutarch states in his “Life” of Sulla (XXXI): “Sulla now began to make blood flow, and he filled the city with deaths without number or limit”, further alleging that many of the murdered victims had nothing to do with Sulla, though Sulla killed them to “please his adherents”.

“Sulla immediately proscribed eighty persons without communicating with any magistrate. As this caused a general murmur, he let one day pass, and then proscribed two hundred and twenty more, and again on the third day as many. In an harangue to the people, he said, with reference to these measures, that he had proscribed all he could think of, and as to those who now escaped his memory, he would proscribe them at some future time.” -Plutarch, Life of Sulla (XXXI)

The proscriptions are widely perceived as a response to similar killings which Marius and Cinna had implemented while they controlled the Republic during Sulla’s absence. Proscribing or outlawing every one of those whom he perceived to have acted against the best interests of the Republic while he was in the East, Sulla ordered some 1,500 nobles (i.e., senators and equites) executed, although it is estimated that as many as 9,000 people were killed. The purge went on for several months. Helping or sheltering a proscribed person was punishable by death, while killing a proscribed person was rewarded with two talents. Family members of the proscribed were not excluded from punishment, and slaves were not excluded from rewards. As a result, “husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, sons in the arms of their mothers”. The majority of the proscribed had not been enemies of Sulla, but instead were killed for their property, which was confiscated and auctioned off. The proceeds from auctioned property more than made up for the cost of rewarding those who killed the proscribed, making Sulla even wealthier. Possibly to protect himself from future political retribution, Sulla had the sons and grandsons of the proscribed banned from running for political office, a restriction not removed for over 30 years.

Mailvox: back for more

It never ceases to amaze me how these idiots read a single paragraph I have written on a subject and then assume that it comprises the totality of my thoughts on the matter. Yesterday’s emailer, Donny, decides to come back for more

I see that you have published my email to you and John.  Well, that’s fine.  I wish I had clarified that my public service at a community college was in addition to my regular job (commodities trader) and those eleven years ended twenty years ago.  You and some of your commenters had fun with that.

To the matter at hand, John’s speech at Mencken asked:  “I’d like to see a good logical proof of the proposition that free trade requires free movement of peoples.”

Your November 9th post (which I discovered from a link in John’s December 1st posting) responded in two paragraphs.  In the first you write “free trade requires the free movement of peoples.”  No, it doesn’t, except in a pedantic “by definition” sense.  As commenter Austin Ballast said, “You still have blinders on VD. Free trade in goods does not require free trade in people, assuming people are not the goods.”

Without regard to minutia such as one commenter’s (SAK) concern for a foreign nation making the chips in our missiles, the big picture on trade is that it is beneficial to both parties trading.  That big picture remains even if we tighten against visa over-stayers, chain-migration and Rio Grande swimmers.

In your second paragraph you speak of “maximum efficiencies theoretically provided” and “maximum growth potential” but less than maximum is still mutually beneficial in the big picture sense.  I made these points in my email to John which I copied to you as a matter of courtesy, since the two of you are so deferential to each other.

In response to my email, you ask, “what two points is the clueless professor failing to take into account here?” as if simply asking makes your points.  Again, Austin Ballast, “VD, you treat this idea more as an axiom than something you have really proven. That is a basic flaw. It may seem obvious to you, but that does not make it true.”

Then you ask, “where is the evidence that free trade in goods without free trade in labor is even materially possible” which is facile.  I agree that visa over-stayers, chain-migration and Rio Grande swimmers are a challenge, but why does that prevent the trade of a container of computers for Africa in exchange for a sum of gold?

Your bullying manner may appeal to the members of your audience with a sadistic bent but I am not distracted from the fact that you have been twice unresponsive to the challenge John posed:  “I’d like to see a good logical proof of the proposition that free trade requires free movement of peoples.”

It’s not so much that I am sadistic as these stubborn ignoramuses tend to be masochistic. Donny isn’t distracted from the fact that I’m repeatedly unresponsive to demands to provide a good logical proof of the proposition that water is wet. Just as being wet is an attribute of water, the free movement of labor is an intrinsic attribute of free trade. What Donny complains is a “pedantic ‘by definition’ sense” is literally what free trade is. Every argument, every economic law, that supports the free trade in x also supports free trade in y. All of them. No exceptions.

Austin Ballast’s comment is particularly stupid. He is projecting the blinders he mentions, because his statement is simply irrelevant. He might as well have said “free trade in cars does not require free trade in computers.” But it does, for the obvious reason that if you are engaged in trading cars without restriction but restricting trade in computers, you are not engaged in free trade. You are simply doing what nearly all states have done for all of human history in restricting the trade in some goods while permitting it in others.

What Donny and some other advocates of “free trade in goods, but not capital, services, or labor” want is to be able to draw the line in a different place than other trade protectionists, but dishonestly avail themselves of the rhetoric of free trade and the ability to appeal emotionally to the language of freedom and liberty.

But as he has asked for an actual proof, I will provide him with a logically unassailable one, one with which he will quibble, but in vain. After all, what can be easier than to prove that water is wet?

  1. The sole justification for distinguishing in economic theory between domestic and foreign trade is to be found in the fact that in the case of the former there is free mobility of capital and labor, whereas this is not true with regards to the commerce between nations.
  2. The basis for restricting the free trade in goods between nations is an invisible judicial line that separates one nation from the other.
  3. The same logic and ethics apply to people who want to trade on both sides of the invisible judicial line known as a national border, which renders this basis for restricting the free trade in goods between nations both false and illegitimate.
  4. Because the basis for restricting the free trade in goods between nations is false and illegitimate, it cannot logically or ethically restrict that free trade in goods.
  5. This invisible judicial line that cannot logically or ethically restrict the free trade in goods between nations does not magically materialize when labor and capital cross it.
  6. Therefore, there is no legitimate justification for distinguishing between domestic and foreign trade in economic theory.
  7. Therefore, any logical, ethical, or theoretical argument for the free trade in goods encompasses the free trade in capital and labor as well.

Those who are sufficiently well-educated in economics will recognize the sources of at least three of those points as well as their impeccably free trade credentials. Unlike Donny and Austin, I do not attack strawmen of my own imagination, but rather, the actual arguments made by the strongest proponents.

What both of them failed to grasp is that simply mentioning the fact that there are beneficial aspects to free trade, limited or not, does not mean that free trade is net beneficial, even if it is limited only to goods or a given set of goods. I do not deny that free trade benefits certain parties, the point is that it also harms other parties whose costs are never factored into the equation. The point that I was making  when I referred to the maximum efficiencies provided is that the argument for economic efficiency to which free traders so often appeal – free trade is good for the economy – necessarily and intrinsically includes the free movement of labor and capital. If one is going to appeal to the good of the economy as a whole without considering the costs to various elements of the economy, then it is every bit as reasonable to argue for the free movement of labor combined with restricting the movement of goods as it is to argue the reverse.

Indeed, if we are to use GDP as our primary metric as so many free trade advocates do, one can make a considerably stronger case for free trade in labor combined with a restricted trade in goods than one can for the reverse.