Since you’re nerdy enough to read EconLog, I assume you’re familiar with Bizarro World, Bizarro Superman, and Bizarro Jerry.  Now imagine adding a new figure to this mythology: Bizarrro Wolf Blitzer.* 

In Bizarro World, the masses and the mainstream media (Blitzer included) are thoroughly libertarian.  Statists are just a handful of hard-blogging oddballs.  To signal his open-mindedness, Bizarro Blitzer invites a leading statist on his show.  But he has a “gotcha” up his sleeve:

Bizarro Blitzer: Let me
ask you this hypothetical question.

A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living,
but he’s what you statists call a “Mexican citizen” living in the “sovereign country of America.”  You call his cell phone and tell him to “go back to Mexico,” but something terrible happens.  Instead of packing his bags, he says, “No thanks, I prefer to live and work right here.”  What would you do about a case like this?

The leading statist of the Bizarro World stutters all over himself.  Like so:

Y’know it’s our country so if we tell him to go home he really ought to.  Using force is ugly, but…  There’d be plenty of charity down in Mexico to help him settle down in comfort.  And he’d probably be better off in Mexico, anyway, cause they speak more Spanish there.  Well, if you asked the him nicely he’d probably be happy to go.

Meanwhile, millions of Bizarro viewers furrow their brows.  Most aren’t paying close attention, so they just hear a lot of wishful thinking about Mexican charity and the joy of Spanish.  But the attentive minority recoils in horror.  “Wait, is this statist actually saying the police should use force to expel an innocent man from his home and job just because he’s ‘Mexican’ and this is ‘America’?  What a monster!”

My claim: The people of Bizarro World have a far better understanding of right and wrong than the people of the real world.  In Bizarro World, people know that it’s morally permissible to refuse to help a total stranger who failed to purchase health insurance, and morally impermissible to treat a peaceful immigrant like a criminal.

* Inspiration here.