Governments should not interfere with their citizens’ freedom to travel wherever they want. The internal passport systems of China and other despotic countries are a gross violation of individual rights. Likewise governments that prevent their people from leaving their country, either by walls and machine guns or by laws preventing the removal of assets, are violating a fundamental individual right.

Exceptions

Those convicted of murder, rape, child molestation, and other heinous crimes, if released by a jurisdiction, should not be allowed by that jurisdiction to travel to other states or countries. To allow such travel is a breach of comity, akin to a man allowing his pit bull terrier to wander the streets and endanger children. He may not think the dog is dangerous, but he has no right to make that decision on behalf of his neighbor’s 4-year-old. The jurisdiction which releases a heinous felon must bear the consequences of its decision. Thus if a people are so depraved as to pity murderers over the innocent, then it must be their wives, their husbands, and their children who are sacrificed to such misplaced compassion, not the people of other societies.

This article is an extract from the book ‘Principles of Good Government’ by Matthew Bransgrove