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Of course. And every time you leave your house, you should file a plan with the government so that bureaucrats can evaluate whether your travel plans are justif

Of course. And every time you leave your house, you should file a plan with the government so that bureaucrats can evaluate whether your travel plans are justified. The state needs documentation of your comings and goings. If you find yourself going down the road without a proper plan, you should know that you're doing something wrong. And a proper plan is one the government has approved as valuable and that justifies all the time and effort the government puts into evaluating plans.

jack-r-abbit 11y ago
I didn't say we needed to track people as they move about the interior of the country. That would be ridiculous. But it is not too much to ask that we know who is coming and going across the border. When I leave the country my passport is scanned. They know I have left. They know when I return. Think of it this way. You have a door on your house. When people come over, they knock on the door and you let them in at your discretion. You know who is in your house. But once in, you don't have to follow them all over as they use the bathroom or get a glass of water. You have certain amount of trust that they won't slip away and try on all your underwear. However, if they do, you probably would ask them to leave and might not open the door for them next time.
MrZongle2 11y ago
You should put a radio-tacking collar on that straw man. There's a big, obvious difference between tracking the crossing of individuals across sovereign borders and monitoring/regulating the travel of individuals within a country. Ensuring that Carlos the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX is not the same as setting up a Stasi-like organization.
- mikeash 11y ago
  What actually is the practical difference between ensuring that Carlos the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX and ensuring that John Q. American the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX? Clearly, there is a de facto difference in how we currently treat the two. But you seem to be arguing that there is a deep fundamental difference in kind that informs that policy. What is it?

jack-r-abbit 11y ago

I didn't say we needed to track people as they move about the interior of the country. That would be ridiculous. But it is not too much to ask that we know who is coming and going across the border. When I leave the country my passport is scanned. They know I have left. They know when I return. Think of it this way. You have a door on your house. When people come over, they knock on the door and you let them in at your discretion. You know who is in your house. But once in, you don't have to follow them all over as they use the bathroom or get a glass of water. You have certain amount of trust that they won't slip away and try on all your underwear. However, if they do, you probably would ask them to leave and might not open the door for them next time.

MrZongle2 11y ago

You should put a radio-tacking collar on that straw man. There's a big, obvious difference between tracking the crossing of individuals across sovereign borders and monitoring/regulating the travel of individuals within a country. Ensuring that Carlos the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX is not the same as setting up a Stasi-like organization.

mikeash 11y ago
What actually is the practical difference between ensuring that Carlos the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX and ensuring that John Q. American the Jackal doesn't fly into LAX? Clearly, there is a de facto difference in how we currently treat the two. But you seem to be arguing that there is a deep fundamental difference in kind that informs that policy. What is it?