Radar on :
Good article. But what about the idea that we have borders, to keep out bad people? You know, national defence.
Monday, April 10. 2006I Don't Claim To Know the Answer . . .
My question is: Why do we still have borders?
I don't like borders. I've crossed the border between the United States and Mexico a few times, in a few different places. I've also crossed the border between the United States and Canada a few times in a few different places. And I've dealt with visa and customs problems more times than I can even remember. I've probably wasted several months of my life standing in line so that some government official could look over someone's papers, frown officiously, and then stamp them as his way of saying that he would allow that person to stay inside of "his" borders for a little while longer. So why do we have those borders? What purpose do they serve? Do they make us safer? I don't think so. I don't have any data to back up my position, but I really have a hard time believing that illegal immigrants commit a disproportionately large number of crimes. My experience with illegal immigrants has been that most of the time, they're too busy working to have time to commit many crimes. Do they help us economically? I don't think they do that, either. Sure, illegal immigrants are willing to work for ridiculously low wages because they know that if they protest, they could be deported, but there are significant costs that come with having such low wage workers around. Health care, schooling, and other public resources are straining to deal with the added expense that comes from having so many people depend on them who can't afford to pay for them. Maybe if they weren't so worried about borders, they would be able to protest the inhumane working conditions that they have to deal with. And maybe then, they could afford to pay for the public resources that they use, bringing down the costs for all of us. So, do borders protect us culturally? Maybe they do that. But realistically, what is American culture? We don't have our own language. We don't have our own religion. We don't have anything that is really ours. Nearly everything that we think of as ours was really someone else's before it was ours. All we can really claim is the American Dream, the dream that through hard work and perseverance, anyone can succeed, and realistically, who embodies that dream better than illegal immigrants? Why do we have borders? They're a convenient way to define Us and Them. We can use them to say, "We have certain rights, protections and privileges that They don't have." Think about it though. What did you do to deserve those rights? Do you deserve them because your parents were born in the United States? Do you deserve them because you were born in the United States? So, They don't deserve those rights because they weren't born in the United States? Whatever happened to the idea that "all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights . . ." ? Is a man alienated from his inalienable rights simply because he is an alien? Trackbacks
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Johnny Elbows on :
That is a good reason for borders, but I don't believe that it works. We can't keep people from crossing our borders, that's why we have 12-20 million illegal immigrants now. If we can't keep them out, how are we going to keep the "bad guys" out?
Anonymous on :
Great article. Sideshow, Andy, and I were having a really similar discussion yesterday morning.
Ancient Of Days on :
I can think of one reason to maintain borders: to delineate jurisdiction.
We have the aforementioned "rights, protections and privileges" because we have, by continuing our lives within the borders of the United States, accepted the social contract on which these rights and privileges are predicated. At the simple and common everyday level, this contract contains things like speed limits, controlled substance laws, and so forth. Because we have accepted this social contract, the federal, state, and local governments can enforce upon us the penalties laid out in the documentation of this contract, the Rule of Law. Because we cannot enforce this contract supranationally, we should, in my opinion, maintain borders to delineate the jurisdiciton of this contract. A note for the future: Let's talk about these inalienable rights...what are they? We have a guideline in the form of "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America", but that document is pretty clear that they made no attempt to create an exhaustive listing. Daboo on :
The reason that we have borders is, simply, because we can't enforce our laws without them. (I realize this ties in to the social contract argument.) You can't say, "hey, you're not allowed to do that here" unless you concretely define where "here" is. Our government needs such specific ramifications in order to function at all. I believe that human mentality in its natural state (the "natural" man) strays towards instant gratification, and therefore without very clear rules people tend to do whatever they feel like doing at the time. In order to keep people safe and respectful of each other, an authoritative force needs to set down clear rules. If we didn't have borders, we would either have to have 1) a world government that set up universal rules, or 2) no laws whatsoever.
In terms of "illegal" immigration, it's simply a matter of the US government saying, "hey, you can't live here," and getting frustrated because it is being ignored. I don't think human migration molds itself well to the borders of superimposed nations, but I also think it is dangerous to ignore the laws of a country, if its laws are to continue to protect (and yes, sometimes bully) its people. radar on :
I think we have so many illegal immigrants because we have cooler country than they do. What we need is a crappier country. Then they won't want to come here.
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