The Schengen zone or the USA is a good example of how not to have borders between states.
Obviously, I’m not talking about administrative borders used to define administrative responsibility zones.
Obviously, I’m not talking about administrative borders used to define administrative responsibility zones.
The Schengen zone is basically the same as the EU, which isn't a single government, but it's acting a lot like one in many ways. Either way, what you seem to be advocating is a single global government. There's no way to have no borders without having a single government controlling everything.
Anyway, what does it mean global government? Is WTO or UN a global government? Why do you need this “global government” to let people travel around?
Don’t forget that travel restrictions on people is a very new phenomenon, not too long ago people were able to travel wherever they wanted without visa or passport or anything like that.
Why do you think that we should keep those restrictions?
No, because they have no ability enforce any policy.
>Why do you need this “global government” to let people travel around?
You said you don't want borders. That's different than just letting people travel freely. National borders entail much more than freedom of travel.
>not too long ago people were able to travel wherever they wanted without visa or passport
Yeah, because it was really difficult to travel anywhere except maybe between neighboring countries. When travel became cheap and easy and countless millions of people starting doing it, they made more restrictions because some people were taking advantage of it.
>Why do you think that we should keep those restrictions?
Do you want criminals from other countries coming to your country? In those wonderful olden days you speak of, that's what happened: people committed terrible crimes, and then evaded capture and fled to other places where no one knew who they were or what they did. Understandably, people don't really want that any more.
We also have the issue of economic migrants. No country really wants to be inundated with millions of poor people from some other country; in the era of modern social services, countries don't have the resources to provide for them. In those olden days, when people moved to a new country, they either figured out how to make a living, or they starved to death, or maybe were exiled or killed if the people there didn't like them for some reason.
Yet most of the inhabitants of the United States are descended from people who immigrated during the time period you're talking about. Why was it ok for them but not for people immigrating today?
> Do you want criminals from other countries coming to your country?
Do you want criminals from other towns/counties/states coming to yours? No, but that doesn't justify banning everyone from coming to your town. The normal standard is that to stop someone on the basis that they might be a criminal, law enforcement has to have some reasonable cause for suspicion. But for some reason, in the case of national borders (and not state, province, etc), the burden of proof is reversed. Everyone is guilty by default and has to prove to the state's satisfaction that they aren't dangerous. Why? If open borders work between Washington and Oregon, why don't they work between Washington and Canada?
> We also have the issue of economic migrants. No country really wants to be inundated with millions of poor people from some other country; in the era of modern social services, countries don't have the resources to provide for them.
Immigrants pay taxes, and the state doesn't need to pay for their education. It's not clear that the mean additional immigrant under an open-borders policy would have a higher net cost to the state than a native citizen. But whatever, let's just assume they would. Instead of banning them, why not just let them come but make them ineligible for social services? That's cruel, but it's way crueler to not even offer them that.
and it was more okay for prior immigrants because we had systems like sponsorship. you couldn't show up and get on the dole. this has changed, which is why central american refugees will skip mexico (a closer country they MUST instead stay in to be legitimate refugees) and come through to here.
there are hordes of people who would come here and take advantage of social programs if we let them. those programs effectively keep people here - you can't argue for supply and demand if you tip things such that people are never forced to go elsewhere to look for work, support a family.
Why do you think it was OK back then? Have you talked to any Native Americans about the effects of uncontrolled migration on their tribes? Plainly put, it was an unmitigated disaster and a genocide. They used to control the whole continent (but divided between various tribes of course, that sometimes didn't get along); now their numbers are puny and they're corralled in some shitty reservations.
>Do you want criminals from other towns/counties/states coming to yours? >If open borders work between Washington and Oregon, why don't they work between Washington and Canada?
Within a country, it's easy: people have criminal records, and can't just skip town and go to the next town and assume a new identity. (Centuries ago, however, they did.) Between countries, it's not so easy: countries don't share their criminal data that easily. That's why we have passports: it's an identification document that shows the destination country that the person is not a criminal and is allowed to travel (since they agreed together not to give these out to serious criminals).
>Immigrants pay taxes
Some do, some don't. Some go to Germany expecting a free ride, passing through all the poorer countries along the way.
>Instead of banning them, why not just let them come but make them ineligible for social services? That's cruel
Why is that cruel? If 100M people suddenly decided to move into Andorra, how exactly do you think the country is going to pay for social services for them?
In 1776, the population of the United States was mostly British. Most of the population of the United States today is descended from non-British European immigrants. But they didn't wipe out the existing British population – they just assimilated into it. The genocide of indigenous people was not a consequence of "immigration," it was a consequence of conquest. I'm against immigrants waging war against and driving out existing populations of the countries they come to, but that is not what is being discussed.
> Within a country, it's easy: people have criminal records, and can't just skip town and go to the next town and assume a new identity. (Centuries ago, however, they did.) Between countries, it's not so easy: countries don't share their criminal data that easily.
Ok, so then countries should work to start sharing criminal records and then they can have open borders, right?
> That's why we have passports: it's an identification document that shows the destination country that the person is not a criminal and is allowed to travel
A passport effectively only allows you to travel if you come from a rich country. If you come from a poor country, you need to apply for a visa. But in either case, you still need to go through a controlled border, and you're only allowed in the country for a limited time. If the concern is really about letting in criminals, and a passport or visa alleviates that, why is it so limited? And why aren't countries working to share criminal records so they don't have to do this song and dance? Hint: it's not really about crime.
> Why is that cruel? If 100M people suddenly decided to move into Andorra, how exactly do you think the country is going to pay for social services for them?
Andorra is part of the Schengen Area – there's no reason why they would all stick around in Andorra. If 100 million people came into the Schengen Area, they would get jobs and pay taxes to fund social services just like everyone else. But you ignored my main point – if you're convinced that immigrants will consume more social services than they pay taxes, why not just let them in but make them ineligible for social services? It's not really about social services either.
The reason that first-worlders don't want third-worlders coming to their countries is because (a) they don't like their skin color, (b) they don't like their culture, and (c) they'd rather have people live in extreme poverty far away than in a reduced level of poverty where they can see it, the same reason they're against building affordable housing in their own neighborhoods. When Western countries started implementing immigration controls, they were very open about this, but since the 1960s it's become fashionable for them to pretend otherwise.
Now, you might object: if that's the reason, why don't all the rich Western countries have open borders with each other? I mean, most of them do (Schengen), but still, why doesn't the USA have open borders with Canada? And the answer is: there's no reason at all. I can't think of any argument against open borders with Canada. The only reason it's not the case is because if all the white countries had open borders with each other, they wouldn't be able to lie about the reason anymore.
But yes, the core reason is obviously selfish, but also understandable.
most of the people entering America right now are not doing so under passports or visas.
and actually i have no problem with opening up immigration contingent on ineligibility for all social services. that way, people will be forced to leave if there is no work and can easily come if there are open jobs.
that said, i think practically this would harm our quality of life. our cities are already breaking. look at how poorly the yankees handled the few thousand illegals we shipped to their "sanctuary cities".
Yeah, I think I clarified that a few messages ago. I'm not against administrative borders, cities have borders too and I'm completely fine with it - governments can claim control over regions and that's fine. Feel free to load all kind of meanings to borders as long as you don't guard them with people that control who can pass and who can't based on bureaucratic paperwork.
And for the "bad people will come" claim, I think you are too trusting for the abilities of your visa department of detecting bad people.
And for the economic migrants, yep that happens all the time and it's very normal. Have you heard of H-2B visa? It's based on this ridiculous idea that the government employees can choose the workers better than the companies that want to employ them. It's so bezire. There's this strange idea that companies will employ unskilled people if you let foreigners come. Can you imagine Apple employing an Afghani shepherd as a product designer because didn't have to go through the immigration procedures and vetted by the government first? Completely ridiculous.
No one is asking you to provide people with free money or anything, just let anyone travel anywhere and do anything legal. Don't worry, you don't waste resources when someone they come over and find a work. On the contrary, the more people working the more wealthy the society is going to be.
If you look closely, the people who cause disturbance are those who are rich enough to travel anywhere and simply consume the resources there without working. Cities like London are suffering from the super rich who just buy properties and consume resources there. The numbers can go up, but the life quality of the natives go down as those who have no involvement in the society start to dominate the economy and compete for the resources with their wast fortunes.
The main cause for the non-working rich causing problems is again the borders. Money means dept, when someone has $1M, it means the society owns him that much worth of services and if that person made that money somewhere else normally when he spends his money the natural flow will quickly reach equilibrium as services and resources will travel to the money. However, when you artificially restrict flow of people and resources without restricting the flow of money you end up with people inflating the demand when restricting the supply causing huge issues to the local people because they will have to compete for resources and provide services tho those who accumulated money somewhere with restricted flow.
And as for the criminals? Deal with them regardless of their paperwork, it doesn't matter if someone is French, British or Pakistani, this should't be relevant.
That's probably what GP means.
This seems a way where you can have localized governments and distinct legal jurisdictions, without "PAPERS PLEAZE!" for people exercising their right to vote with their feet.
In effect, borders plus freedom is a way to get a more ideal world without necessitating a global government. That it may require or be improved by a bit more global cooperation and coordination among nevertheless distinct jurisdictions is a not a bad thing tho.
Tho maybe I haven't thought this through. What do you think the problems are with this permeable borders approach are?