From a moral perceptive there are no good arguments for borders. If anything they are immoral.
From a political theory perspective I can understand some of the arguments but mostly they fall into historical contingency rather than anything essential.
What is the real downside of open borders? Do we think that the pointless customs/border crossings/laws actually matter in stopping crime or something?
And crime is down. There was a blip of flattening and slightly increasing crime, but it has not returned to the drastic decrease that has been happening since the peak in the early 90s.
I take âFully open bordersâ to be âessentially open bordersâ. Arresting a known terrorist, head of a cartel or Benjamin Netanyahu is still good.
Open borders could be huge net benefit for essentially everyone for whole host of reasons at certain times, and it could also could cause a shitstorm of problems for a kinds of folks in other times - which is why you continuously have cycles of heavy migration and times of tightening. Itâs also heavily intertwined with trade which is another discussion that follows suit here.
The premise that some permanent, zero oversight, opened bordered policy would be best is taking a laughably complicated topic and simplifying it to an idiotic level. There just isnât a discussion to be had there.
MB, if you want to argue that higher migration levels than the current status quo would be better - which i think you and I did a little on 22, weâd be more aligned on the topic, and its acutally a good discussion. But again, you can easily hold both the opinion that a more lax immigration policy would benefit everyone while a complete un supervised open border policy could lead to serious problems
Serious problems where and for who? Essentially completely unsupervised open borders would result in fewer problems for the most people and I think thatâs essentially obvious. I think essentially completely open borders would benefit the average person in the US now, as it has at all times when it was the case, and would for the foreseeable future, but Iâm sure it would be better for the average human on Earth and on top of that, freedom is just plain good.
Like, open borders between the USA and Haiti results possibly, maybe, not surely, but maybe and likely notâŚa net cost to the average person living in the USA over the course of their lifetime. It probably doesnât. Young Haitian immigrants will be the people doing work that that person needs done when they are old. But, man it could help a lot of Haitians a lot. It might cost you a few nickels though. Probably not, but maybe. And itâs also freedom.
Haitian wanting a better life: Iâd like to cross this line thatâs 1500 miles away from you. Please.
Border supporting American: That might cause me some trouble. Iâm going to pay someone to shoot you in the face.
Itâs kinda hard to have a proper welfare state and full open immigration, especially when you many neighboring countries arenât doing so hot
Youâre wrong, but thatâs ok. Youâre still a decent guy
Itâs the restrictions on immigration that started in the late 19th and early 20th century that are going to kill Social Security.
Lots of decent people (imo) are wrong (imo) about this.
eta: Like when I say the border supporting American is paying someone to shoot an innocent person in the face, yes, that is what they are doing (or die in the desert or get tangled in razor wire in the river), but they either donât think about it, donât believe it, or think other problems are worse. I think if most people had to spend a minute actually enforcing the border, theyâd change their minds. If there were a draft for border patrol officers or guards at detention facilities, things might change.
I agree. And there is no discussion to be had about them being right
This is really fucking stupid.
eta: oh what thread is this? Itâs all stupid, but thatâs really fucking stupid.
Itâs the weekend. Donât you have police to call about the music from your immigrant neighbors today?
Not sure why weâre talking about border control in the moderation thread, but Iâm admittedly conflicted on the issue
I can see an ideology that is against all borders for all countries. But if youâre going to be a sovereign nation, then how can you not enforce borders at least to some extent?
I donât think you can just waltz into Canada and stay as long as you want. You have to show you can be a somewhat productive citizen, donât you?
Refugees should always be welcomed. Itâs who we are. And all immigrants regardless of where theyâre from should be given the opportunity to become American citizens. But there needs to be some system of fairness where you canât just jump the line (again, not talking about refugees who are fleeing war and oppression). This seems common sense to me, but Iâm willing to be shown wrong
When I was a kid you could.
Sometimes I get shocked how Americans have been so force fed propaganda. You think accepting refugees is who America is? Youâre 74th in the world. You accept 5 times fewer refugees than Canada by population. Even in pure numbers you accept only twice as many as Canada and you are 11 times larger.
If anything, not accepting refugees is a defining characteristic of your immigration policy.
Itâs what America used to be, but that faded away from 1882 through 1924.
Youâre so fucking weird micro.