I can think of no better words than Yeats’ to describe the time and world in which we live. Things are falling apart, and anarchy has been loosed upon the world.

Dating with precision our descent into cultural nihilism is tricky, but surely we cannot doubt that something terrible was unleashed upon the United States during the summer of 2020, when Antifa and BLM mobs ransacked and set America’s cities on fire.

And then on October 7, 2023, true evil—Satanic evil—fell out of the skies over Israel, rode motorcycles across Israel’s border with Palestine, and came ashore on Israeli beaches. Over 1,100 Israeli and non-Israeli Jews (and others) were murdered that day by Palestinian and Hamas terrorists.

Let’s be very clear about what happened on that day: woman and children were raped, sodomized, and burned alive. Babies were incinerated in ovens. Over a hundred hostages (including babies) are still being held captive. The evil that day was, in many ways, worse than the Holocaust. It was an event of medieval barbarity that should be judged and condemned for what it is: pure evil. And let us also recall that nearly 75% of Palestinians supported Hamas’ actions.

Of even greater concern to me than the unleashing of anarchy upon the world is that the “best lack all conviction” and the worst are “full of passionate intensity.”  The worst have been acting out on American college campuses for the last few months. The pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, pro-genocide, pro-communist (but I repeat myself) demonstrators have been effectively shutting down America’s campuses with their demonstrations, threatened violence, violence, encampments, and takeover of university buildings. The ideal of American higher education is dead.

What’s happening on our college campuses is unparalleled. Not even the “love and peace” whackos from the 1960s and early 1970s called for genocide!

And let’s be very clear about who is organizing these demonstrations and what they’re about. The funding organizations and off-campus groups organizing these demonstrations are explicitly pro-communist and anti-American. Their goal is to destroy America as we know it.

We also know that many of the organizers and protestors have been university professors and administrators. Many of these academics have joined in chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which, as everyone knows, is a call for Jewish genocide. Some of these professors and administrators have engaged in low-rent violence. And yet, none of them—or, at least, no more than infinitesimally small number—has been arrested, suspended, or fired.

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And now we turn to the case of Jonathan Yudelman, who was, until yesterday, a visiting lecturer at Arizona State University. He’s now been put on administrative leave.

A couple of days ago, Yudelman was walking to campus when he came upon a smallish, pro-Israel demonstration on the edge of campus with people carrying Israeli and American flags. Opposite them was a much smaller contingent of pro-Hamas protestors, who were screaming that the massacre of over a thousand Jews by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023, was an “inside job” and that Israel is a terrorist state. Their intent was to provoke.

As he approached the two groups of protestors, Yudelman was verbally accosted by a Muslim woman, with whom he had a heated verbal altercation. Yes, Yudelman got in her face, and, yes, he called her a “bitch.” This may not have been Yudelman’s most attractive, prudent or gentlemanly moment, but neither action was a crime.

So, who exactly is Jonathan Yudelman? He is a Canadian Jew, who studied in Israel as a young man. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Boston College. Yudelman is a top-shelf scholar, who works on liberalism in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Giambattista Vico. He’s not exactly a serial or professional protestor. He’s a guy who got caught up in a protest on his way to work.

Precisely because of his sociological profile and intellectual pedigree, he’s had a difficult time finding full-time academic employment in recent years. As a result, he’s moved from one, one-year post-doc, to another. In recent years, he’s held limited-term teaching positions at Harvard, Princeton, Baylor, University of Texas, and he’s currently finishing up a one-year teaching gig at Arizona State University. He’s a very smart and thoughtful man.

And finally, after spending years living in tiny one-bedroom apartments and moving around the country looking for full-time employment, he recently landed a long-term job at the brand new University of Austin in Texas. UATX is known for its commitment to free speech, free association, and free inquiry. For Yudelman, getting the Austin job is a dream come true. Finally, after spending years as an academic vagabond, he found a home—or, at least, he thought he did. His future is now very much in question.

Could we please have some perspective here! What Yudelman did was next to nothing as compared to what’s been happening on our campuses for the last seven months. It’s nothing as compared to the illegal and immoral actions taken by some professors and administrators all over the country.

There is a clear double standard going on here, which the Left is expert at exploiting. They’re also expert at using the principles and ideals of a liberal, democratic society against itself. Straight out of the Antifa playbook, like clockwork, the woman involved in the exchange immediately started screaming “hate crime, hate crime, hate crime.”

The whole thing was entirely performative and self-evidently a set up. That’s abundantly clear.

Yudelman’s career has been potentially destroyed by a 25-second, low intensity, non-violent, momentary act of sidewalk rage. He has been put on administrative leave by Arizona State University, and he’s being investigated.

The Intifada Left has made Yudelman its poster-boy for destruction. He’s been doxed all over Twitter and social media.

The things that are being said about him on Twitter are false, vile, and wicked. He’s being publicly accused of “verbally abusing” and invading the personal space of a Muslim woman who was looking for a confrontation. He’s been called a “racist” and a “misogynist,” and he’s been accused of “sexually assaulting” this woman and of being a “GENOCIDAL ZIONIST.”

These are self-evident lies. It’s defamation, and it’s libel.

The doxers have called on members of the Intifada Left to go on Yudelman’s “Rate My Professor” page to destroy his reputation so that he’ll never work again. Most importantly, the Intifada Left is going for Yudelman’s new job at the University of Austin. They’re demanding that he be fired even before his job at Austin starts.

The only victim here is Jonathan Yudelman. Let’s hope he hires a good lawyer.

As of this writing, Jonathan Yudelman is the loneliest man in the world. He’s without friends or supporters. His reputation and career are in tatters. What is happening to Yudelman is unjust and unjust means immoral.

Two questions remain: Do the best men lack all conviction? Will anyone defend Jonathan Yudelman, or are the best men without chests?

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration is my most persuasive book. Anyone who closely reads the book loses, on average, about half of their opposition to immigration. Yet sadly, the absolute number of readers remains low. As a graphic novel, it only takes two hours to read, but that’s still asking too much.

Almost no one wants to actually read anything; if I’m lucky, they’ll listen to me speak for five minutes. And with those attention constraints, I’ve learned time and again, I’m barely persuasive on immigration at all. Sharing five minutes of intellectually sound arguments sways almost no one.

Given all my writings on demagoguery, I shouldn’t be surprised. Successful politicians base their power on the charismatic delivery of pretty lies. As a conscientious scholar, I refuse to stoop to their level. But it does make me wonder: If I was willing to go full demagogue in defense of open borders, what would I say?

Probably something like what I’ve written below the flag. Dear readers, I give you… my demagogic case for open borders.

The United States is a country of immigrants. Some of us are the children of immigrants. Others their grandchildren or great-grandchildren. But the only reason any of us are here is that someone born elsewhere chose to move to this great country. And a big part of what made this country great is that when newcomers arrived, we welcomed them, we worked with them, and we had children together. American children.

Now I ask you, when this great country first welcomed your ancestors, was it a sacrifice? Was it charity? Were your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents a burden on this country? Of course not. They showed up with big American dreams — and big American drive to make those dreams happen. It’s thanks to our courageous ancestors who forsook the Old World that we’re Americans today.

Every other country would have refused them. Only America had the vision and heart to look at our ancestors and extend the earnest hand of friendship. Instead of sneering, “They’re not good enough for us!” they saw fine people ready to work hard to make a better lives for their families. And they weren’t wrong. That’s just the way it happened. And because past generations of Americans had this vision and heart, we became the greatest country in the history of the world. E pluribus unum — “out of many, one.” America has always been a beacon of hope — and that’s why we’re the light of the world.

And that’s why it breaks my heart to hear my fellow Americans look at the latest generations of immigrants and say those awful words, “They’re not good enough for us!” We’re here because our ancestors knew better. Our ancestors knew that when someone arrives on our shores in ragged clothes, speaking broken English, carrying their half-starved kids, a real American is not fooled. He looks past the failures of the Old World and sees the latest family of Americans. People not looking for a hand-out, or even a hand-up, but just a warm handshake: “Welcome to America, land of opportunity.”

I’m an American, not an American’t. Name any complaint you’ve got about immigrants. I’ve heard them all. They’re the same complaints naysayers had about our ancestors. What do you think about the folks who said that your ancestors were “too different,” “too lazy,” “too stupid” to provide for their own families in this great country?

They weren’t just mean, and they weren’t just wrong — though they certainly were both. Worse, they were un-American. Because if you believe in this country, you don’t even need to listen to these crybabies. If you want to do the right thing, you’ll find a way. Otherwise, you’ll find an excuse.

Being an American was never easy. It meant looking past the sins of the governments of the people we welcomed. Being an American meant welcoming Germans who grew up worshipping the Kaiser. Being an American meant welcoming Russians who grew up worshipping their Czar. Being an American meant welcoming the tribe that everyone else on Earth blamed for crucifying Jesus Christ himself.

And that’s why, when American faced its greatest challenge in World War II, we had millions of German-Americans, Russian-Americans, and Jewish Americans on our side. Fighting on the beaches. Planning in the war rooms. And engineering war-ending atomic bombs underneath the University of Chicago. If he’d lived in modern times, Jesus Christ wouldn’t have just given us the moral lessons this country was founded on. I firmly believe that he would have chosen to become a proud American citizen.

And that’s what we have to remember whenever someone says, “Immigrants are great, except.” Exceptions are not the American way. We’ve got to welcome the people of all nations. We’ve got to welcome them with the same confidence past generations of Americans welcomed our ancestors. There’s always a few bad apples, but the American solution is American justice for the individually guilty — and that’s all she wrote.

You can attack this country, but you’ll never kill the American dream. A dream that tells the whole world: No matter how bad things seem, there’s a special country out there ready to take a chance on you, if you’ll take a chance on her. A special country called the United States of America.

America is immigration, and immigration is America. It’s my story. It’s your story. And it’s the story that the whole world needs to hear. God bless America, and God bless every one on Earth who dreams of America. Because together, we’re going to make the greatest country on Earth greater than it’s ever been.

[End demagoguery.]

P.S. I know, of course, that the U.S. wasn’t history’s only open borders country!

I have long praised a happy result of the free market: It discourages racism. Two memorable examples I have brought up here include commercial desegregation in Houston (when segregation was called "bad for business") and the universal reach of the Sears catalog across the South.

Both of these show capitalism blunting the force of segregation, or helping end it outright.

Notably, thanks to a recent John Stossel article, we can now add a historic example of capitalism actively resisting Jim Crow due to the power of self-interest:

Image by Unknown Photographer, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

"It's often forgotten that owners of buses, railways, streetcars in the American South didn't really segregate systematically until the late 19th century," says [economist Johan] Norberg [, author of Capitalist Manifesto]. "It was probably not because they were less racist than others in the South, but they were capitalists. They wanted money, they wanted clients, and they didn't want to engage in some sort of costly and brutal policing business in segregating buses."

Even when segregation was mandated, some streetcar companies refused to comply. For several years after Jim Crow laws passed, black customers sat wherever they wanted.

Norberg adds, "Those owners of public transport, they fought those discriminatory laws because they imposed a terrible cost….They tried to bypass them secretly and fight them in courts. They were often fined. Some were threatened with imprisonment."

The streetcar company in Mobile, Alabama, only obeyed Jim Crow laws after their conductors began to get arrested and fined. [bold added]

Notice that capitalism, the system that respects individual rights, strongly penalizes racism, because it is antithetical to a person's actual self-interest: It took the active abuse of government, in the form of fines and imprisonment, to fully implement the costly folly of treating customers badly, or forfeiting them altogether.

I have not myself read Norberg's book, but on this evidence, it appears to be worth consideration by any serious advocate of capitalism or racial equality.

-- CAV

GAZA — With reports of a proposed agreement to temporarily end hostilities in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Hamas celebrated the proposed ceasefire with a rocket barrage directed toward Tel Aviv.

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