DN: In the Constitution there is a process by which the Constitution itself can be changed, and because of the way that process works by going through the Congress it would be difficult to get rid of an amendment if you wanted to.
MB: The 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919 and it made alcohol not only illegal, but unconstitutional. And so suddenly nobody was drinking alcohol in the United States? The roaring twenties, speakeasies, are you kidding?
DN: Well sure, there are plenty of ridiculous laws...
MB: Well, not just the ridiculous law. The point is that people were ignoring the Constitution. The 18th Amendment was completely ignored because it was a stupid law. Congress had no authority whatsoever to tell people what they could and could not eat, what they could or could not smoke or what they could or could not drink. And so eventually, in 1933, they passed the 21st Amendment which said 'gosh we were really stupid' and it repealed the 18th Amendment.
DN: You bring up a very good point there which goes right into one of my other questions. One of the biggest issues right now is the issue of illegal immigration. We have a lot of people coming over the borders to take jobs here in America. It's going to be one of the big policy issues of the next decade or two. Illegal immigration is a case very much like what you talk about with prohibition. There's a great demand for the workers here in the United States and there's a demand in Mexico for workers to come here to the United States. The law and the laws which are being proposed for the most part, supported by a big popular groundswell, do not want to recognize that natural dynamic of people going where the work is, which exists across borders in this case. As a matter of policy, if you got into office, how would you deal with immigration.
MB: First of all, let me point out that illegal immigration is an oxymoron. Immigration is a legal process by which people come to the United States, learn the language, learn the Constitution, promise to protect everybody else's private property and you become an American. That process is immigration and it is by definition legal. If you are here illegally you have just demonstrated that you have no respect for law and it is not immigration. First we need to get the definitions straight. If you want to come to the United States and become and American I don't care what color you are or what religion you believe, then welcome. I'm happy to have someone to help me protect the Bill of Rights. However, if you want to come to the United States with your flag, demanding free education and free healthcare and free housing and basically trying to convert my free republic into a third world, socialist dictatorship, I'm not in favor of that. The United States is to the best of my knowledge the only country in the world that identifies its citizens based on ideology. Again, you come here, support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and you're one of us. We cannot change those ideas. The Constitution and communism are mutually exclusive. You cannot protect private property and declare that private property doesn't exist. And so, illegal immigration, as it's called, isn't good for anybody, because the people who come here are working at incredibly low wages, they're illegal, they're under the wire and they're paid cash in most cases. The usual explanation is that Americans aren't willing to do those jobs. Well, the answer is that Americans are not willing to do those jobs for those wages. In fact, Mexicans would not be willing to those jobs for those wages without the free housing, free welfare, free education and all those things. American taxpayers really don't have a problem with people coming to this country. In fact, I meet people every day whose ancestors have come from someplace else. But, what we are upset about is people coming here and basically sponging off the system without paying the taxes. And again, it's not an advantageous situation for the people who are coming here, because if you decide to work for me and I promise you five dollars an hour and you work slave labor most of the day and then I give you three dollars an hour, what's your recourse? Are you going to go call the police? You're an illegal immigrant. So you are basically at the whims of the system and again it's not good for everybody. So what we need to do is regulate the borders. Completely open or completely closed borders are not only impossible, they're also undesirable. We do want people to come here. We just want to know who's coming so we an filter out those who are contagious or who are criminals. A lot of the problem along our borders, especially in Texas which is one of our border states, is damage to private property, rape and murder. I don't care what country you come from, those things are crimes and we need to address them. So the whole situation, is difficult as it is, but it is complicated by using the oxymoron of 'illegal immigration' and kind of lumping both groups together. We need to be able to identify the people who want to come here, work hard and become Americans and keep out the riffraff that just wants to cause problems.
Article comments
1 - Roberta
Good for Michael Badnarik, I hope he wins. Finally, Libertarians are getting some press.
Bill Peirce, Libertarian for Ohio's Gubernatorial race
Good article, looking forward to part 2.
2 - Nancy
Terrific article, well done, Dave! I don't agree totally with his ideas, but I really hope he wins, because he's on target in that the current incumbents both GOP & Dem have forgotten THEY work for us, and this country desperately needs a 3rd - and even a 4th - alternative party for people to choose from. I'm surprised the GOP hasn't targeted him & started their usual smear campaign; perhaps they don't regard him as being enough of a threat? What do you hear about that?
I've always thought it was a vast mistake for alternate party candidates to run for president; without some kind of prior position such as congressman or governor, it's virtually impossible. Even Ross Perot with all his billions was unable to buck the system in the end, more's the pity.
Well, here's to Badnarik; good luck to him & all of us. Good job, Dave!
3 - Dave Nalle
Badnarik addresses the issue you raise at some point in the interview, as I recall. His argument is that you get a lot more exposure for your ideas as a presidential candidate and if you're not going to win anyway, you want to not win with the largest possible audience.
Dave
4 - Nancy
Yeah, but look at Lyndon LaRouche, the perennial Presidential candidate. He's been running for eons, but his platform gets nowhere. It's a joke. Now if he'd perhaps gone (back before he became a household byword for crackpot) for a local position & solidified from there, to a seat in the Virginia assembly, and from there to a seat in congress or perhaps governor, he'd have had a viable position from which to get out the message. As it is, he's just the crackpot who runs for president every 4 years. As I said, I think it would take someone with the bank account of a Bill Gates to try to break in on a national level, these days, and even that would be an uphill job, given the ruthless desperation of the two entrenched parties to prevent anyone else from joining the fray. After all, look at the savaging Bush/Rove inflicted on fellow Republicans; talk about eating your own young! I hardly think they'd be nicer to a wanna-be 3rd party or its candidate.
Anyway, I DO hope he wins. Good job, Dave.
5 - Lumpy
What larouche runs for is kind of irrelevant since he's so obviously a deranged maniac.
6 - Clavos
Very interesting interview, Dave.
I like
muchmost of Badnarik's ideas expressed here, but I'm not in agreement with his wanting to do away with GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA, and trade agreements in general.I'm afraid if we do, other nations will impose tarriffs and other restrictions unilaterally, and the net result will be a loss of market position on a worldwide basis for American businesses.
He makes a strong point when he talks about his potential for supporting and backing up Ron Paul.
I wonder how realistic he is when he dismisses your point about committee memberships?
7 - Jet in Columbus
Now if we can keep idiots from confusing the Libertarians from the Communists he'll be all set.
8 - George Whitfield
I really like the way Michael Badnarik explains his positions. I am so glad that I contributed to his campaign for Congress in Texas. I wish him the best.
9 - Al Barger
I like Michael Badnarik very much, but I'm really dismayed by this quote and the implications: "If you are here illegally you have just demonstrated that you have no respect for law and it is not immigration."
I appreciate that there are problems associated with the massive not government approved immigration from Mexico, particularly involving the US welfare state getting stuck picking up the slack from sub-living wages. That's more a reason to reform and cut back on various aspects of the welfare state than to be against immigration though, I'd argue.
But this common argument that being here illegally means that you're an outlaw is absolutely bullshit, and it's especially dismaying to hear this from a Libertarian. As a good Libertarian, Badnarik won't recognize laws that are unconstitutional. Beyond that, he won't recognize the legal legitimacy of the income tax, which is constitutional, on grounds that they are violations of our basic liberty. I'm right there with him on all that. Just because some legislature passes a law or a judge makes an edict does not automatically make it legitimate or morally binding.
But then how does someone who speaks this way turn around in the next sentence and demonize people coming here to work for people who want to hire them and rent them places to live, just because the government has arbitrarily decided that they can't?
And he's certainly kidding himself if he thinks that a serious crackdown on unapproved immigration won't involve some kind of ugly national ID crap. Jumpin' Jehosaphat, this fellow spent years refusing to get a driver's license on principle- and now he's wanting ID for people to establish their right even to walk the street.
10 - Dave Nalle
Very good point, Al. Many Libertarians believe in open borders and I did ask Badnarik about this and got a kind of cagey inadequate answer rejecting open borders but not really addressing the implications. I really wanted to take him to task on some of this, but I didnt' think it was my place as the interviewer to start lecturing him. He's a nice guy, but even though he's more sensible than the norm of Libertarians, he's still not dealing entirely in the real world.
We had an interesting talk outside of the interview about some aspects of LP politics that I didn't have any formal questions on, and apparently even the small compromises with practicality which he's made have pissed off a lot of the far-out Murray Rothbard style Libertarians - the same people who protest when Neal Boortz gets invited to speak at their convention.
Dave
11 - me
"... dumped...like most of the other 'Fighting Dems' - and he's getting no financial support from the party.."
How much is Bush paying you to claim this?
got any evidence?
I didn't think so.
12 - Dave Nalle
'me', what is your problem? The abandonment of the Fighting Dems by the DCCC is well documented. And can't you use a hyperlink? I provided a link to DailyKos specifically about how Ankrum has been dumped.
One would think that if you're a 'new democrat' you'd be outraged at Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC for their outrageous treatment of the Fighting Dems rather than taking it out on me for mentioning it.
Dave
13 - Scott
The DCCC's support (or lack thereof) for Ankrum has more to do with the 10th district's conservative leanings rather than the fact that Ankrum is a fighting Dem. You can't win them all...I suspect their money is going into more "winnable" districts.
14 - Lumoy
Doesn't this district include a big chunk of Austin? Why does that not make it good for a demoxrat?