Seattle-Tacoma, WA, interview:
"This is not about Muslims...Anyone who loves this country should be against this thing."
Ayn Rand once defended immigration, pointing out that totalitarian states should bleed human capital, until their crippled economies (and governments) fail. She hated any form of coerced labor under sub-optimal conditions, and believed everyone had a right to better themselves. She fled the newly-formed USSR as a means of "voting with her feet." That said, she despised religion, and saw that any form of chosen unreason("faith") was an immense harm, especially when membership benefits of any social group are contingent on relinquishing reason (allowing for mob-mentality to be selected for on the basis of unintelligent conformity). My thinking on the Muslim travel ban mirrors her stated opinions(while she was alive), in many ways. As such, it's conflicted.
Paleo-libertarians such as Murray Rothbard add a deeper level of analysis sometimes missing from objectivist thinking: Restricting travel benefits the central-banker-run socialist police state, politically. People who cannot travel freely cannot effectively politically organize, nor can they earn livings in high-paying jobs that require travel. (Nor can they make easy benefit of foreign technical, political, or legal expertise.) Impoverished people cannot effectively pursue capitalist freedom, because their political support demographics are more likely to undercut their own legitimacy by accepting handouts. (It's ideal from a central banker perspective if everyone works at menial jobs, never accruing enough capital to effectively organize, politically. This also reduces participation in counter-economic activity, and in the development of counter-economic tools, like software such as Cell411 that aims to reduce state interference with people's private lives.) Most "slave pen"-style totalitarian countries ban the easy crossing of borders. The USA has been in transition to this type of overt totalitarianism for the past 50 years, because most people don't comprehend the nature of freedom, and thus have no goal that significantly counteracts the goals of the power-seeking, usually-bar-licensed, totalitarians (the highest-level of which, worldwide, are the central bankers).
On the principle that nothing should be done to benefit the central-banker-run socialist police state, I oppose the travel ban. (Although I am also also highly suspicious of Islamists, due to the extremely toxic-to-life "commands" in the Koran, and the totalitarian teachings of Islamic Imams.) I haven't gotten involved with the crowds who are protesting the travel ban, because I think it's not very effective, and because many of the people protesting the ban are, themselves, socialist totalitarians. In any case, there are two sides to this "story," and most of those on both sides would consider me a political heretic for the views I've expressed here.
It should be noted that a return to the Anglosphere's(English+American) "common law" system would be optimal for "both sides." (I.e.: A reinstatement of the common law, and a proper jury trial for those accused of any crime, whereby the state must prove the existence of a valid corpus to the criminal trial jury.)
...In any case, here's a look at what's going on "on the ground" at several airports:
JFK Airport, NY:
LAX, Los Angeles, CA:
Chicago, IL:
Seattle, WA:
Miami, FL:
