anti-immigration and trade

[rigney]

You do whatever you like. But not everyone agrees with you. Maybe you could start a union in mexico that boycotts jobs that benefit countries that deport people. Just don't expect it to be very popular.

 

(oh, and what if the person in that analogy used a fake ID to sign up for his original job, but then was allowed to work with his real ID at a lower wage?)

 

 

 

Altruism is nice but don't expect everyone to share your sentiment. Are you really surprised that people don't want other people taking their jobs and getting benefits paid for by their taxes, due to entering their country without permission? The government should do the will of the people, and the will of the people isn't the will of lemur. American public property is the property of the American public, just as your house is your property. If you want to go start a country in Antarctica or in the oceans (which are international territory, unowned by any countries/people groups), be my guest.

 

Sorry Mr S., but sometimes you come off so dichotomous that I don't really know whether to kick or kiss your backside? But regardless of your benevolent stance, "touche". I can accept defeat, but not disgrace. Edited January 14, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

Lemur, since you and Dr. Skeptical have denounced me as being uncooprative and disrespectful, how should I go about kissing your backsides to make you feel better? Are either of you American citizens?!!! If not, then shut it up. If so, then grow a pair and identify yourself as someone with a cause. What we don't need are interlopers from the outside dictating our problems. We have enough as it is. C'mon! Come out and identify your 'sneaky" displeasures. As long as people like me live, people like you will have to eventually bring your problems to the floor. Cowards hide. The brave persevere.

The irony when people say things like this "love it or leave it" ideology is that they are the ones making it unpleasant to be free and democratic, because they basically forego respect of freedom in favor of insisting on authoritarian devotion to the institutions. The institutions are there to support freedom and democracy, not to promote their own worship. Use it or lose it, if you truly believe in it, that is. Also, you have absolutely no right to tell non-citizens to "shut up." There are laws protecting people against discrimination on the basis of national identity.

 

Like I said, you and your fellow utopian residents can argue that point with the next Taliban soldier who points an AK-47 your way after waltzing across an open border and shoving Sharia Law in your face. Good luck.

There are two approaches to terrorism: 1) you treat it as an internal problem in a global democratic republic and basically police the world against it. 2) you divide the world up into bounded regions and utilize terrorism as a means of intimidating people into internal solidarity within the region that "protects" them. It's like the old mafia trick of getting people to "pay for protection," when the point is actually extortion of support regardless of consent.

 

Ok, we're cool, and if you want to tilt at windmills you go right ahead, I'm just letting you know that my interest here is limited. I'm sure there are some here who will be happy to go there with you.

Ok, bye. Good luck warding off your fear of the Taliban by rallying for international apartheid. Do realize, however, that anti-migration nationalism did play a role in the conditions that led to the war on terror in the first place.

 

That's fine, I understand where you're coming from and appreciate your addressing my question. I think you're in denial a bit about why those borders exist, but hey, more power to you.

I actually agree with you more than you realize, but I question whether there's not a less ethnicist way of policing the threats that national borders are supposed to keep out. The question is whether the goal is to control global threats or to segregate people into separate regions according to national identity.

 

 

 

 

[mississippichem]

Lemur,

 

If everyone was allowed to just waltz through national borders without consequence, then how are we to keep any order in the developed world? If we just opened the floodgates then every impoverished underpaid person from the third world would come to the US, Canada or western Europe. The situation in the first world would soon begin to look like the third world these migrants were trying to escape from. Unemployment in the US is very high right now (compared to the standard to which we have become accustom); how do you think we would be able to provide jobs for everyone? Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. If borders didn't exist or weren't enforced then the Earth would quickly become a wasteland ruled by mobs, criminals, and whoever has the biggest guns. What would be there to stop foreign armies from invading? Look at the situation in Afganistan and Pakistan. The border towns between the two nations lie in waste because neither government has the stones to stop Taliban or Al Quaeda from running their game on these poor defenseless people who live in the border gray area. So these terrorists (terrorism isn't the point, it could just as easily be criminals or a small foreign army) just run back and forth between the two countries and are allowed to evade capture.

 

I don't have stats to back this, but I imagine the reason that most migrants from Mexico try to illegally cross the border is to find gainful employment. These people are desperate for work and a chance at a better quality of life. If they were deported from the US and got offered a job at a US owned factory the next day in Mexico, I expect they would gladly take it to feed their families. Only here in the first world do we really have the luxury of choosing work based on our political and ethical views. In less fortunate places, people are starving and are willing to do anything to allow their families to eat for one more day.

[lemur]

If everyone was allowed to just waltz through national borders without consequence, then how are we to keep any order in the developed world? If we just opened the floodgates then every impoverished underpaid person from the third world would come to the US, Canada or western Europe. The situation in the first world would soon begin to look like the third world these migrants were trying to escape from.

Personally, it offends me that the world is economically segregated. If people want to develop, why shouldn't they gain access to the knowledge and resources to do so? If the developed economies had better political relations with less developed economies, there would be more freedom for people to move around and choose various lifestyles. Personally, I don't like having to pay high prices to support an economy of excess, so it would be nice if there was sufficient security and democracy in poorer regions to facilitate living well without the material excesses. Someday, consumerism might calm down but for now it seems like recession after recession does nothing to deter people from wanting to live a high-consumption lifestyle.

 

Unemployment in the US is very high right now (compared to the standard to which we have become accustom); how do you think we would be able to provide jobs for everyone?

I think economic prosperity should not require high employment. At this point in modernity, I think economic production should be consolidated down to a few necessary labor activities that are shared among large numbers of people by taking turns.

 

Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. If borders didn't exist or weren't enforced then the Earth would quickly become a wasteland ruled by mobs, criminals, and whoever has the biggest guns.

Obviously ethnicity/nationalism has a lot to do with it or else the various developed economy regional governments would allow freedom of movement and people would migrate wherever they wanted within the developed/civilized world. As it is, however, part of each national ideology is that its people and institutions are more civilized than all the rest and therefore it is necessary to keep 'barbarians' out.

 

What would be there to stop foreign armies from invading? Look at the situation in Afganistan and Pakistan. The border towns between the two nations lie in waste because neither government has the stones to stop Taliban or Al Quaeda from running their game on these poor defenseless people who live in the border gray area. So these terrorists (terrorism isn't the point, it could just as easily be criminals or a small foreign army) just run back and forth between the two countries and are allowed to evade capture.

And if it was a single region, they would just be running back and forth without crossing a border.

 

I don't have stats to back this, but I imagine the reason that most migrants from Mexico try to illegally cross the border is to find gainful employment. These people are desperate for work and a chance at a better quality of life. If they were deported from the US and got offered a job at a US owned factory the next day in Mexico, I expect they would gladly take it to feed their families. Only here in the first world do we really have the luxury of choosing work based on our political and ethical views. In less fortunate places, people are starving and are willing to do anything to allow their families to eat for one more day.

Whenever I watch documentaries about "poor Mexicans," the people are usually living more or less independently with their own livestock and homestead-farming. I think people migrate to the cities (either in Mexico or the US or elsewhere) because they want some excitement away from rural mundanity. Rural-urban migration is the main type of migration throughout history and today as well, I think. People may say that they're doing it because they need the money for themselves or for their families, but I think the pull of high exchange rates and adventure is a big part of the attraction. If NAFTA was better integrated, I think the adventurousness of migrating to the US would lose allure. Similarly, I don't see why more US-Mexico migration shouldn't be taking place, although I think English speakers should learn Spanish, at least to the extent that they expect Spanish speakers to learn English.

 

Still, my main point is that people view it as natural to separate the world into national regions instead of viewing it as an intervention in global free trade, which it always has been. Colonialism took place before the rise of nationalism and although nationalism has had some positive effects, I think the negative effects have outweighed those. Look at WWII and EU national-supremacy today, as well as the bickering that goes on between people with Canadian and US citizenship, nevermind the disdain of Anglo North Americans toward Spanish speaking North, Central, and South Americans. Nationalism has mostly stoked lots of ethnicism and superiorism. I think people need to get over their ethnic egos and start living as the global citizens they ultimately are.

Edited January 14, 2011 by lemur

[Mr Skeptic]

Personally, it offends me that the world is economically segregated.

 

No, it doesn't. Why is it that you believe in private ownership but not group ownership? Why can you own a house but a people can't own a country?

[swansont]

Personally, it offends me that the world is economically segregated. If people want to develop, why shouldn't they gain access to the knowledge and resources to do so? If the developed economies had better political relations with less developed economies, there would be more freedom for people to move around and choose various lifestyles. Personally, I don't like having to pay high prices to support an economy of excess, so it would be nice if there was sufficient security and democracy in poorer regions to facilitate living well without the material excesses. Someday, consumerism might calm down but for now it seems like recession after recession does nothing to deter people from wanting to live a high-consumption lifestyle.

 

What of the people who don't share this view? It's one thing to be free to do what you want, but quite another to make everyone else do what you want. Which is something both sides of the political spectrum forget, depending on the argument.

 

As I said before, you can vote with your feet.

[lemur]

No, it doesn't. Why is it that you believe in private ownership but not group ownership? Why can you own a house but a people can't own a country?

 

 

What of the people who don't share this view? It's one thing to be free to do what you want, but quite another to make everyone else do what you want. Which is something both sides of the political spectrum forget, depending on the argument.

 

As I said before, you can vote with your feet.

I would like to answer Mr. Skeptic's quote with Swantsont's. Collective ownership is in conflict with individual/private ownership. All collectivism really is is one or more individuals institutionalizing themselves as a group/team that is supposedly greater than the sum of the parts. In practice, there is no sum of the parts; just individuals invoking the idea of collective interest/will/etc. to dominate individuals whose interest/will/etc. conflicts with those of "the group." I put "the group" in parentheses because from an individualist framework, no "group" actually exists except as individuals building on the previous work of other individuals. So, ultimately, collectivism is really just something one individual does to another and legitimates by reference to other individuals beyond her/him self. This may sound complicated, but what it comes down to is that no individual should be dominated by another (hence the reference to Swanson's post.

 

There is a formal institutional means for asserting collective individuality and it is called incorporation. If multiple individuals wish to have collective property, they can incorporate and own private corporate property and regulate it according to their corporate charter and observe the public regulations on corporate governance. I suppose, the public government could be considered a corporation of the constituents of the government, but I don't see why public governance should concern itself with limiting migration to or from a particular region. The only reason I can think to restrict migratory freedom would be if someone was planning to work or otherwise act in some collective interest, though I don't know why this shouldn't be policed for citizens as well as non-citizens. As long as people are acting according to self-interest and respect the rules of a reasonable free market, why shouldn't they be allowed to travel and work freely? Do "republic" and "free market" really translate that easily into "citizens-only social economy?"

 

[Pangloss]

This may sound complicated, but what it comes down to is that no individual should be dominated by another (hence the reference to Swanson's post.

 

Your conclusion of "domination" is not explained by your rationale of individual ownership versus collectivism. The modern economic model stops ownership from being zero sum.

[lemur]

Your conclusion of "domination" is not explained by your rationale of individual ownership versus collectivism. The modern economic model stops ownership from being zero sum.

This doesn't have to do with (only) economics. It has to do with the logic of social-conformity vs. independent culture. When individuals shirk their independence to submit to "collective authority," they create a standard and expectations by which they judge and react to others. Imo, individuals don't just have the right but also the responsibility to abstain from collectivism insofar as it impinges on individual freedom. Of course there's no way to stop them from engaging in cultural collectivism, since they do it out of individual choice/volition (usually). What bothers me, though, is the idea that collectivists would actually go so far as to police the borders of a region, which makes it that much easier to assimilate individualists who live there. Rather, I should say, it makes it easier for them to filter migration in a way that promotes assimilation among migrants instead of promoting individualism. If it were possible to control migration/borders to filter out conformists, I might be for that, but the problem is that anytime you create criteria that people have to meet to enter a privileged situation, they tend to assent/conform to the criteria, which makes it nearly impossible for independent-minded individualists to pass through institutional gatekeeping in any form.

[Mr Skeptic]

I would like to answer Mr. Skeptic's quote with Swantsont's. Collective ownership is in conflict with individual/private ownership.

 

So what? Individual ownership is also in conflict with individual ownership. If I own something then you don't.

 

And are you also suggesting that corporations must allow anyone who wants to to wander on their property and do stuff there, since it is collectively owned? And you still haven't given a reason to justify why you should be allowed to demand how people use their property (by not allowing immigration). I don't need to give a reason for anything I do on my property, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?

[lemur]

So what? Individual ownership is also in conflict with individual ownership. If I own something then you don't.

 

And are you also suggesting that corporations must allow anyone who wants to to wander on their property and do stuff there, since it is collectively owned? And you still haven't given a reason to justify why you should be allowed to demand how people use their property (by not allowing immigration). I don't need to give a reason for anything I do on my property, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?

Because collective restrictions on access to individual property is an impingement on individual freedom. If you are going to abridge my freedom to infrastructure, you have to have a good reason, right? A majority or multiplicity cannot restrict the rights/freedom of an individual simply because of a preponderance of interest, can it?

[Mr Skeptic]

Because collective restrictions on access to individual property is an impingement on individual freedom. If you are going to abridge my freedom to infrastructure, you have to have a good reason, right? A majority or multiplicity cannot restrict the rights/freedom of an individual simply because of a preponderance of interest, can it?

 

So why aren't you complaining about the restrictions individuals make on private property? If I want to go sit on your couch and watch your TV, what gives you the right to tell me to get lost? Just because you own that stuff does that mean that you get to restrict my freedom? Why can't I wander around on the collectively owned property of a corporation, what gives them the right to restrict my freedom?

[lemur]

So why aren't you complaining about the restrictions individuals make on private property? If I want to go sit on your couch and watch your TV, what gives you the right to tell me to get lost? Just because you own that stuff does that mean that you get to restrict my freedom? Why can't I wander around on the collectively owned property of a corporation, what gives them the right to restrict my freedom?

My couch is mine so you sitting and watching TV on it is theft or hijacking or something like that. Your freedom is restricted to public property and limiting my actions that impinge on your freedom despite you exercising it on my property. E.g. I don't think it is legitimate for me to censor your freedom of speech or right to be notified of charges against you just because you're on my property. If I feel that your exercise of freedom is in conflict with mine, I think I have to respect due process and your rights in pursuing justice.

 

Corporations have charters that explicate their prerogative as individuals, and these charters are supposedly limited by law. There is theoretically nothing a corporation can do to another individual that an individual can't. Should a state or other public government be allowed to govern as if it were a (corporate) private property? I don't think so. I think any public manager should regulate public property from the perspective of a universally free individual seeking access to publicly-accessible venues.