In addition to confronting directly improper actions of Federal agents, contemplate pressuring Republicans across your state. That’s every state, not just Minnesota. The pressure should be entirely non-threatening and entirely legal. A useful start is creating a public list of all the Republican politicians in the state, most notably the large number of what are in my state called city and town party committeemen.
The pressure is public criticism and public shaming, criticism in social media and elsewhere. The criticism has to be polite but personal “John Smith, why are you supporting the kidnapping of American citizens?” Signs such as “Republicans should be ashamed of themselves”, with a list of names, comes to mind. Warning people on a block or two that their neighbor is an active Republican, and that they should keep their children away and safe from him, comes to mind. Whatever you are considering, start by privately and personally urging Republicans for the good of our country to move away from their party.
There is a face side to this. If there are efforts to reform ICE, to improve ICE training so that its members stop disgracing their country, they should be supported, and people pushing for reforms should be encouraged.
Readers would find it of interest to learn about the Norwegian response to World War II German occupation of Norway. Shunning and social ostracism of supporters can be effective. In Norway, there was a 30 minute halt in which all traffic and work came to a stop.
Libertarians should NOT support efforts to “reform” or “improve” ICE. We need to push to abolish it. Nothing short of that will do. Remember the national platform – “Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders.”
There is an argument for taking an extreme position, knowing it won’t be reached, just to have more room to compromise. But, people are objectively better off with Selective Service registration than with an active military draft, even if the absence of Selective Service registration would be better.
We can support reforms to ICE as a short term compromise to provide immediate relief while still advocating its long term dissolution.
The difference between you and I is the classic difference between principled Libertarians and those more moderate, and it’s really not worth arguing the point. I will say though that I do not see abolishing ICE as an “extreme” position, and I do not know a single Libertarian who thinks having to register with Selective Service would consider themselves to be “better off”.
I will never support ICE as “a short term compromise”. It must be abolished.
You either misunderstood my point or you are straw manning. I specifically said to continue advocating for the dissolution of ICE as a long term goal, while advocating reforms in the immediate term. And that is a perfectly libertarian strategy, according to Rothbard himself:
“The Marxists identified two basic deviations, two basic erroneous strategies, and I would endorse this, with of course a different twist. One is what they call Opportunism, which I think is often rampant in the movement. … The objective, which had been advancing liberty, now becomes keeping the organization going, keeping the payrolls going…. The other problem is sort of the opposite problem, which is Marxist call Sectarianism, which is only talking about the ultimate goal and not talking about the transition to it. I think the best, most extreme example of that is the old, loveable Socialist Labor Party. I don’t know if anybody here has heard of it. For good reason nobody’s ever heard of it. The Socialist Labor Party has been in existence since about 1890 or so. They’ve gotten no place. Their strategic outlook is simply to publish one pamphlet. And the one pamphlet has different headlines every … their update to their outreach program is to change the title. In other words, they’ll say ‘are you worried about…?’ Are you worried about nuclear war, pollution, unemployment, whatever the situation is. And then they reprint the same pamphlet. And the answer is socialism. Scrap capitalism and on to socialism, that’s it. It hasn’t been very effective. It’s not a grabber. And there are a lot of libertarians, I think, who have the same emphasis. OK, smash the state, that’s it, without any kind of intervening analysis.
“So what do I think is the correct strategy? I think the correct strategy is to hold the ultimate goal, the objective, always keep it in mind, and then offer what the Marxists call transition programs.” – Murray Rothbard (not a principled libertarian, apparently.)
Rothbard went on to describe the criteria for a good transition program, which is that 1. The transition program should never contradict the ultimate, goal, and 2. The transition proposal should be more radical than whatever the major parties are offering, otherwise there is no point.
Clearly there are intermediate areas between Trump’s immigration policies and open borders? That does not mean abandoning the free movement of people as the goal. It means recognizing that, right now, in the current political climate, free immigration is not going to happen and you will secure zero relief for persecuted immigrants if you hold out for all or nothing.
https://youtu.be/ONS33ukkTtE?si=m0YsOCcf3Xyjad1U&t=310
You really don’t see the difference between Selective Service registration and no active military draft and an active military draft? Do you see a difference between a $200 fine for a drug offense and 10 years in prison? If you don’t, you’re right – it isn’t worth discussing anything with you.