I invited two agents from  ICE’s Newark, New Jersey Field Office to speak to my cross-listed Philosophy/Criminal Justice class today. The topic? “Enforcement and Removal Operations 101,” or less euphemistically put, “Deporting People in the Name of the Law: An Introduction.”

The two agents more or less made the arguments you would expect agents from ICE to make: ICE is empowered to search, seize, detain, and deport those who violate the nation’s immigration laws; some or many of these illegals are bad actors, whether of a criminal or terrorist variety; and though the media like to focus on the most problematic or controversial actions that ICE undertakes, media coverage doesn’t adequately explain the legal rationale or ICE’s enforcement/deportation operations, or give a balanced account of what it is that the average ICE agent does on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Continue reading →

Anyone who’s spent time in libertarian circles has probably encountered the notorious debate over easements. Here’s an interesting iteration of the debate from about a decade ago, involving Walter Block, Stephan Kinsella, and Roderick Long. Roderick’s position nicely summarizes the basic issue involved:

I’ve long argued that one property owner cannot legitimately buy up all the land around another’s property and thereby either keep the latter prisoner (if she was on the property at the time) or bar the latter from her own home (if she was away) – since one cannot legitimately use one’s own property to interfere with the liberty and property of others.

I read the debate with intense interest when it came out, but never quite settled on a position, in part because I found the thought-experiments involved too distant from anything I could think about with any degree of confidence. Also because I wasn’t sure I agreed with the underlying assumptions that got the debate off the ground. Continue reading →

I was having lunch yesterday in the university cafeteria with a priest who teaches a course on ethics. Predictably, the priest was doing what we all do, namely, complaining about his students–complaining, in particular, about their susceptibility to pro-choice propaganda. “You know,” he said in dismay, “I asked them when human life begins, and they all think it begins when the child exits the womb!” Not everybody at the table knew quite how to respond to this, but I told the priest I sympathized with his dismay. Obviously, I said, human life doesn’t begin when the child exits the womb. It begins when the child exits the house.

I somehow feel like I learned this lesson from Judith Jarvis Thomson, but I’m probably misremembering her argument.